Middle East Crisis: Hezbollah Again Fires Rockets Into Northern Israel as Border Clashes Intensify (2024)

For the second straight day, escalating violence raged across the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israel’s military said in the afternoon that Hezbollah had sent more than 40 rockets across the border, but the barrage continued well into the evening. Hours later, the military had not updated that number, but a military spokesman called it the most serious attack since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October. He did not immediately elaborate.

At least four people were injured in Thursday’s assault, according to both Israel’s military and its emergency service, Magen David Adom. The military said in the afternoon that its air defenses had shot down many of the weapons fired up to that point, but some had penetrated. The attacks and counterattacks ignited wildfires on both sides of the border.

On Thursday night, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported that an Israeli strike destroyed a house, caused several casualties and started a fire in the town of Jannata, Lebanon, a few miles from the coastal city of Tyre.

On Tuesday, an Israeli strike targeted and killed Taleb Abdullah, one of the senior commanders of Hezbollah, a powerful armed group and political faction backed by Iran. The group pledged to step up its attacks on Israel in retaliation.

On Wednesday, Hezbolllah fired more than 200 rockets at Israel, according to the Israeli military, but they did minimal damage.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that its fighter jets had struck “Hezbollah military structures” overnight, in Lebanese border villages.

After the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel’s retaliatory campaign in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah stepped up its attacks against Israel, which replied with artillery and airstrikes into Lebanon, raising a long-simmering conflict closer to a boil.

The near-daily strikes have forced more than 150,000 Israelis and Lebanese living near the border to flee their homes.

Israeli officials have threatened stronger action against Hezbollah, and pressure to do so — from the political right and from displaced civilians — has been rising. But so far both sides have stopped well short of full-blown war.

Israel killed Mr. Abdullah in a strike on Tuesday night in Jwaya, in southern Lebanon, saying he had “planned, advanced and carried out a large number of terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”

The United States, France and other mediators, warning of the danger of a regional war, have sought to advance a diplomatic settlement between Israel and Hezbollah that could restore calm on both sides of the border. But analysts say the likelihood of an agreement is low as long as Israel’s eight-month-long campaign in Gaza persists.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and 2006, each time to push back militant groups that were launching attacks into Israel.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

Israel’s finance minister diverts Palestinian funds to terrorism victims.

Earlier this month, two laws went into effect that allow victims of terrorism and hostilities to claim Palestinian funds, enabling the action Mr. Smotrich took on Thursday.

The move further imperils the already struggling West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which is in dire economic straits, and it could inflame tensions in a territory that has seen a sharp increase in conflict and a decline in quality of life for Palestinians since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel set off a war in the Gaza Strip.

Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesman, called Mr. Smotrich’s decision “extraordinarily wrongheaded” and said the Biden administration had made clear to the Israeli government that “these funds belong to the Palestinian people.” Mr. Smotrich’s order “risks destabilizing the West Bank and further harming Israel’s own security,” Mr. Miller said at a news conference in Washington.

Under decades-old agreements, Israel collects customs and import taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Those revenues constitute most of the Palestinian budget, particularly as international aid has declined.

Mr. Smotrich — who has labeled the Palestinian Authority “an enemy” — has withheld funds from the authority, using his power over its purse to worsen the economic situation in an already financially depressed region.

Before Oct. 7, about 150,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank worked each day in Israel, but after the war began, Israel imposed a general ban on employing them, leading to a steep rise in unemployment in the West Bank. Some Israeli businesses have qualified for an exemption, but the ban has led to a labor shortage in Israel and aggravated economic struggle for Palestinians.

Experts have warned that without funds to pay its security forces and other government workers, the Palestinian Authority’s economic troubles could lead to more instability in the West Bank and in Israel.

In May, Mr. Smotrich said that he would withhold tax revenue from the authority after Ireland, Norway and Spain decided to recognize a Palestinian state and after the International Court of Justice said it would seek arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over the war against Hamas in Gaza. Mr. Smotrich accused Palestinians of using “political terrorism” against Israel in the international community.

The finance minister has also threatened that by the end of June he will withdraw the indemnity granted to Israeli banks that transfer money to financial institutions in the West Bank, a protection that ensures the Israeli banks will not be sanctioned for ties to terrorism. This is expected to chill deposits of funds to Palestinian accounts, including from Israeli companies that work with the Palestinian Authority, and could further destabilize the authority and the West Bank.

Mohammad Mustafa, the recently inaugurated Palestinian Authority prime minister, warned last month that the dire fiscal situation was contributing to a “very serious moment” in the West Bank.

Mr. Mustafa was meeting with European Union officials on Thursday for the sixth E.U.-Palestine Investment Platform. He said that the withholding of tax revenues by Israel was a major challenge and asked European allies for help with the matter, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Michael Levenson contributed reporting.

U.S. strikes targets in Yemen as Houthis step up attacks on shipping.

One merchant vessel was hit by projectiles about 98 nautical miles east of the Yemeni city of Aden and caught fire, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British agency, said in an online post. It did not name the ship.

But the U.S. Central Command said two Houthi missiles had struck a Ukrainian-owned bulk carrier, the Verbana, in the Gulf of Aden, severely injuring a crew member, who was later evacuated to another ship.

The Polish-operated vessel was en route to Italy carrying lumber and caught fire. “The crew continues to fight the fire,” the U.S. military said.

The British maritime agency said it also received a report from an officer of a second ship, about 82 nautical miles northwest of the port of Hodeida, that there was an explosion near the vessel.

“There was no damage to the vessel, all crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” the agency said.

A Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said in a televised speech that in addition to the Verbana, they also struck two more vessels, which he identified as the Seaguardian and the Athina. His claim could not be independently verified.

On Wednesday, a Greek merchant vessel, the Tutor, sent out a distress call after the Houthis said they targeted the ship using unmanned surface boats, a number of drones and ballistic missiles.

The Central Command said the impact of the attack caused severe flooding and damage to the engine room. The fate of the ship remained unclear on Thursday. The “continued malign and reckless behavior” by the Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Central Command said.

The threat posed by the Houthis in the Red Sea makes it harder to deliver critical assistance to the people of Yemen as well as to Gaza, it added.

Palestinian residents and media report heavy bombardments in the Rafah area.

“We are very concerned,” Mr. Lulu said. “This is supposed to be a safe area, and we have no other place to go to if they attack here,” he added.

It was not possible to independently verify the location of the strikes.

Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported on Thursday that the Israeli military had intensified missile and artillery bombardment “by air, land and sea,” on Al-Mawasi.

The Israeli military quickly denied the Wafa reports and said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app that no Israeli military attack “took place in the humanitarian area of ​​Al-Mawasi.”

In a later statement, the military said its forces were pressing on with operations in Rafah, where they were engaged in “face-to-face encounters” with Hamas fighters.

Fighting in Rafah has raged on and off since early May, when Israeli soldiers began their advance into the heart of Rafah in what Israel has called an essential step to defeating remaining Hamas battalions and dismantling the group’s infrastructure.

The population in Al-Mawasi has grown immensely as hundreds of thousands of people have heeded Israel’s warnings to leave Rafah. Israel has insisted that it has not attacked the areas it has designated as humanitarian zones, but many Gazans are not clear on their exact locations and remain on edge.

Israel has posted on social media and dropped leaflets over Gaza to identify the zones. But aid workers have noted how difficult it is for people in Gaza to determine whether they are in a designated safe area, as many have limited access to mobile phones or the internet.

Some civilians have said they never saw any leaflets, while others said the directions, which include a numbering system the Israeli military uses to describe different areas, confused them.

The Biden administration says there is not a clear timetable to come to a deal.

But after more than eight months of war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas still appear to be far apart on an agreement. On Tuesday, Hamas issued a formal response to the cease-fire proposal to Qatari and Egyptian mediators, which officials in the Palestinian armed group said included some amendments.

“Some of those amendments are modest, minor. They’re not unanticipated,” Mr. Sullivan said at a briefing in Italy, where leaders of the Group of 7 countries were convening, without giving details. “We can work through them. Others are not consistent with what President Biden laid out.”

The three-stage plan calls for an immediate six-week cease-fire in the first phase as negotiators hammer out a plan for a permanent end to fighting. Some hostages held in Gaza would also be released during the first phase in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.

In the second phase, both sides would declare a permanent cease-fire, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, and more hostage-for-prisoner exchanges would take place. The third phase would include the reconstruction of Gaza.

Hamas demanded a clear timeline for a permanent cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and wanted further assurances from the United States and other mediators to that effect, said an official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Two senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps briefed on Hamas’s response said it included a demand that Israel withdraw from two critical corridors — one along the Egyptian border and one cutting across the center of the Gaza Strip — within the first week of the initial truce.

Hamas also demanded a full Israeli withdrawal by the end of the first phase of the agreement, as well as a complete and “sustainable” halt to fighting before any exchange of Palestinian prisoners for hostages, the Revolutionary Guard members said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks.

The Israeli government described Hamas’s counterproposal as an effective rejection of the deal. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has not clearly and publicly endorsed it either, issuing carefully worded statements emphasizing Israel’s commitment to Hamas’s destruction without taking an unequivocal stance.

Mr. Biden described the proposal as an Israeli initiative, and Israeli officials confirmed it was approved by the country’s top leadership. But Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right allies have vowed to bolt from his ruling coalition should he agree to the deal — potentially toppling his government — which they call terms of surrender to Hamas.

Asked about the ambiguous Israeli public stance, Mr. Sullivan said he could confirm that Israel stood behind the proposal. “I haven’t heard any Israeli leader right now contradict that they stand behind the proposal,” he added.

Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

The Houthis attack a merchant ship off Yemen’s coast.

After the attack, the ship was “taking on water, and not under command of the crew,” the agency, The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, said in a statement on its website. The statement said the ship’s master had reported it was also “hit for a second time by an unknown airborne projectile.”

A Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said in a televised speech that the group had used unmanned surface boats, a number of drones and ballistic missiles to target the ship, which he identified as the Tutor, a Greek-owned bulk carrier. He claimed the ship was seriously damaged and could sink.

On Wednesday, the Houthis said they launched two joint military operations with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, on the Israeli cities Ashdod and Haifa, a claim Israel denied.

Since November, the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on ships in the vital sea route in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, stifling global maritime trade.

In retaliation, the U.S. and British navies have been intensifying airstrikes against Houthi targets, the latest coming on June 7 after the rebel group detained 11 United Nations employees in Yemen.

The U.S. Central Command said its forces had destroyed four aerial drones and two anti-ship missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen last Friday, as well as a Houthi patrol boat in the Red Sea.

In February, American military officials said the United States struck five Houthi military targets, including an undersea drone they described as an “unmanned underwater vessel” that they believed the Houthis could have received from Iran.