JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Sunday it carried out a ground raid in Syria and arrested a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks. This was the first time in the current war that Israel announced that its forces were operating in Syrian territory.
Israel launched air strikes in Syria several times over the past year, targeting members of the Lebanese Hezbollah group and officials from Iran, a close ally of both Hezbollah and Syria. But it has not previously announced any ground raids in Syria.
The Israeli army said the confiscation was part of a special operation “that took place in recent months,” but did not say exactly when it occurred. Syria did not immediately confirm this announcement, but the pro-government Syrian radio station, Sham FM, reported on Sunday that Israeli forces carried out a “kidnapping operation” over the summer targeting a man in the south of the country.
Israel has launched an escalating bombing campaign in Lebanon over the past six weeks, as well as a ground invasion along the shared border between the two countries, vowing to cripple Hezbollah. An Israeli military official said on Saturday that naval forces carried out a raid in a northern Lebanese town and arrested a man they described as a senior Hezbollah operative.
The army identified the man as Ali Suleiman Al-Asi, saying that he lives in the Sidon region in southern Syria. She added that the man had been under military surveillance for several months and participated in Iranian initiatives targeting the Golan Heights areas annexed by Israel near the border with Syria.
A video of the raid released by the army showed soldiers kidnapping a man wearing a white tank top inside a building. The army said that the man was transferred to Israel for investigation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border with Lebanon on Sunday, saying his focus was on trying to prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself through the “oxygen lifeline” of Iranian weapons transferred to Lebanon via Syria. Israel says its campaign in Lebanon aims to push Hezbollah away from the border and put an end to the shooting that the group has been carrying out for more than a year in northern Israel.
Israeli raids on Lebanon killed more than 2,500 people over the past year. In Israel, 69 people were killed by Hezbollah shells.
During the US presidential election campaign this weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged progressives and members of the state’s Arab-American population who are angry with the Biden administration for continuing the US alliance with Israel while pressing the Netanyahu government in its war against Hamas. In Gaza.
“I have been very clear that the level of deaths among innocent Palestinians is unconscionable,” Harris told reporters.
In East Lansing, Michigan, she addressed the issue shortly after she began her remarks. He added: “As President, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza, return the hostages to the homeland, end the suffering in Gaza, ensure the security of Israel, and ensure that the Palestinian people are able to realize their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination.” She said.
Some students in East Lansing voiced their opposition Sunday with loud calls for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. At least one attendee was escorted out after calls for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued their offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, where the army said it was fighting Hamas fighters who had regrouped there.
Hospital Director Hossam Abu Safiya said in a statement to the media that a rocket shell hit Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, wounding patients, including children. He said that the shells hit the hospital’s nursery, dormitory and water tanks after the visit of a delegation from the World Health Organization.
Kamal Adwan and two other nearby hospitals were bombed by Israel several times during the fighting. Earlier this month, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan, arresting a large number of people, including many employees, Abu Safiya said at the time of the raid. The army said that among the detainees were Hamas members, without providing evidence, and said that weapons had been found at the facility.
But in a statement, the Israeli army denied hitting Kamal Adwan on Sunday, blaming “an explosive device planted by terrorist organizations in Gaza” for the attack.
“Attacks on civilians, including humanitarian workers, and what remains of Gaza’s civilian facilities and infrastructure must stop,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement on Saturday. “The entire Palestinian population of northern Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of death from disease, famine and ongoing bombardment.”
In southern Gaza, emergency services at the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health said that an Israeli strike hit a group of people gathered outside the eastern Khan Yunis area, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four children and a woman. Nasser Hospital in the city, which received most of the bodies, confirmed these numbers.
An Israeli drone strike on Saturday hit a clinic in northern Gaza where children are being vaccinated against polio, wounding six people, including four children, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli army denied responsibility.
Dr. Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan Clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, a few minutes after a UN delegation left the facility.
UNICEF and the World Health Organization, which are jointly implementing the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern about the reported raid. Rosalia Poulin, a UNICEF spokeswoman, said the raid occurred when a “humanitarian truce” agreed to by Israel to allow vaccinations took effect.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesman, said, “Contrary to allegations, the initial review concluded that (the IDF) did not strike the area on time.”
It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza during the war, saying Hamas was using them for military purposes, a claim denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters are also active in the north, fighting Israeli forces.
Israeli forces have cordoned off and largely isolated the northern Gaza Strip over the past year. Israel launched another attack there in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.
On Saturday, a mini-campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began in parts of northern Gaza. A UN statement said it was postponed from October 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombing, mass evacuation orders and the lack of guarantees of a humanitarian ceasefire.
The first doses were carried out in September throughout the Gaza Strip, including the north.
At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of northern Gaza towards Gaza City in the past few weeks, but there are still about 15,000 children under the age of 10 in northern towns, including Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, which are inaccessible. . According to the United Nations
The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign was intended to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of oral polio vaccine, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access restrictions,” the agencies said.
They say 90% of children in every community should be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.
The campaign was launched after the first case of polio was reported in Gaza in 25 years, in a 10-month-old boy with a paralyzed leg. The World Health Organization said that the presence of a case of paralysis indicates that there may be hundreds of others who have been infected but are not showing symptoms.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping 250 others. The Israeli attack led to the death of more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza, who were no fewer than the number of fighters but more than half of whom were women and children.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
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