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Israel Strikes Hezbollah Target in Lebanon over Aerial Objects

Palestinian flag seem next to the Hezbollah flag in southern Lebanon (AFP)
Palestinian flag seem next to the Hezbollah flag in southern Lebanon (AFP)
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Israel Strikes Hezbollah Target in Lebanon over Aerial Objects

Palestinian flag seem next to the Hezbollah flag in southern Lebanon (AFP)
Palestinian flag seem next to the Hezbollah flag in southern Lebanon (AFP)

Israel's military said early on Saturday it had struck a Hezbollah target in southern Lebanon in response to the "infiltration of unidentified aerial objects into Israel" and fire on an Israeli drone.

The military intercepted the objects and the fire on its drone, it said.

Earlier on Friday, Israeli shelling struck a Lebanese army observation post at the border on Friday, three sources in Lebanon told Reuters, after the Israeli military warned of a suspected armed infiltration that it said it was responding to with artillery fire.
Israel later ruled out that any incursion had occurred and residents of a village near the border, who had been instructed to hole up at home and lock doors and windows, were told they could again go outdoors.
The alert was issued in Hanita, 500 metres (yards) from the tense border and opposite Aalma El-Chaeb.
Lebanon's Hezbollah group later said it had carried out attacks on a number of border areas as a response to attacks Israel carried out earlier in the day on south Lebanese towns.
The military statement said there had been an explosion at the adjacent border fence, which was lightly damaged.
Lebanese state media reported that shells struck near Alma Al-Shaab and Dhayra, the sites of repeated clashes in the past week, the deadliest at the border since Hezbollah and Israel fought a brutal month-long war in 2006.

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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File

The world's only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.

It is often characterized by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands, AFP said.

"The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan," Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), told AFP.

"We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years," said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.

"It's difficult to bear."

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan's army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.

The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.

Sudan's health care system has been left at the "breaking point", according to the World Health Organization.

Among the conflict's casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.

A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.

AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC's current condition.

The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.

Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.

The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan's neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.

For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.

Drawing on the MRC's expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan's government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.

"Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards," said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi's head of mycetoma.