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Attacks by Lebanon's Hezbollah Group Wound 7 Israeli Troops

A picture taken from the Lebanese side of the border shows smoke rising on hills near the Israeli town of Metula as a result of a strike reportedly coming from Lebanon, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Hassan FNEICH / AFP)
A picture taken from the Lebanese side of the border shows smoke rising on hills near the Israeli town of Metula as a result of a strike reportedly coming from Lebanon, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Hassan FNEICH / AFP)
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Attacks by Lebanon's Hezbollah Group Wound 7 Israeli Troops

A picture taken from the Lebanese side of the border shows smoke rising on hills near the Israeli town of Metula as a result of a strike reportedly coming from Lebanon, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Hassan FNEICH / AFP)
A picture taken from the Lebanese side of the border shows smoke rising on hills near the Israeli town of Metula as a result of a strike reportedly coming from Lebanon, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Hassan FNEICH / AFP)

Attacks by Lebanon's Hezbollah group Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 other people, Israel's military and rescue services said.
The clashes came as skirmishes between the Iran-backed group and Israeli military continue to intensify along the Lebanon-Israel border, threatening to escalate into another front in the Mideast’s latest war, The Associated Press said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that "seven Israeli soldiers were lightly injured as a result of the mortar shell launches in the area of Manara in northern Israel earlier today.” Israeli rescue services did not identify the location or provide information about the 10 others wounded by rocket blasts and shrapnel, but said two of them were in critical condition.
The Israeli military said they identified 15 launches from Lebanon over the past hour and their defense systems intercepted four of them. The rest fell into open areas.
Hamas’ military wing, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for shelling the northern Haifa and the Israeli border towns of Na’ura and Shlomi from southern Lebanon without giving any further details.
Hezbollah first fired antitank missiles at an Israeli community just over the border on Sunday, Israeli officials said, badly wounding utility workers. The Israeli military said it was striking the origin of the launch with artillery fire. 
Israel struck several southern Lebanese towns, including Yaroun, Mays el-Jabal, and Alma al-Shaab. Hezbollah said it launched guided missiles against a “logistical force belonging to the occupation army that was about to install transmission poles and eavesdropping and spying devices near the Dovev barracks.” It said it hit an Israeli military bulldozer in a separate strike. Shortly after the attack, air raid sirens were heard in northern Israel. Army Radio reported that another antitank missile had been fired from Lebanon.
Hezbollah later announced attacks on Israeli military gatherings and barracks in border areas Birket Riche and Zareit, as clashes continue to intensify along the tense Lebanon-Israel border.
The assault was the most serious incident involving civilians since an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Nov. 5 killed a woman and three children.
Israeli troops and Hezbollah and their allies have been clashing along the border since the Israel-Hamas war started five weeks ago with a bloody incursion into southern Israel by Hezbollah ally Hamas. While largely contained, clashes have increased in intensity as Israel conducts a ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas.
Also Sunday, the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL, said one of its peacekeepers had been wounded by gunfire overnight near the Lebanese town of al-Qawza. It was not immediately clear where the shooting had come from or whether the peacekeepers were targeted or caught in crossfire. UNIFIL said it was investigating.

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Arab World

EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
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EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)

Some European Union countries are pushing to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of Syrian migrants as mainstream leaders look to replicate anti-immigrant far-right parties’ surging popularity across the Continent, according to a report by POLITICO.

The report noted that these efforts are led by Italy, whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday to the Italian Senate ahead of the EU leaders’ meeting, “It is necessary to review the European Union Strategy for Syria and to work with all actors, to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way.”

After President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2011 spiraled into a bloody civil war, his government was accused of using chemical weapons on its own people and was accused of torture, the report said.

The EU cut off diplomatic ties with the country in 2011. The regime survived and its operations continued in major part due to the military support of Russia and Iran.

The civil war has since ground to a standstill and the Syrian president has faced near-total global isolation.

Two EU diplomats told POLITICO that Meloni plans to raise the relationship with Damascus during a meeting of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Those calls from one of the EU’s largest countries come on top of a concerted push by a group of others, some of which have hard-right or far-right parties in government (or supporting government), such as Austria and Hungary.

The push to normalize relations with war-torn Syria and its president comes after a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties after the European election in June, namely France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

In recent weeks, POLITICO said that Poland’s prime minister has drawn a rebuke from the EU executive for saying that Warsaw would suspend asylum rights for migrants coming to Poland via Belarus.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has shut his country’s borders to EU neighbors following a knife attack allegedly involving a migrant and France’s newly appointed prime minister, Michel Barnier, has said EU rules on deportations should be revised to speed up expulsions.

One EU diplomat echoed Meloni, saying Israel’s ground operations after its invasion of Lebanon in early October added momentum to the push for deporting Syrian migrants.

Nearly 200,000 Syrians and Lebanese have fled to Syria since the start of October, according to the UN.

In Europe, more than 1 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in the past 10 years, according to 2021 data from the UN Refugee Agency.

The POLITICO report said Assad’s government, for its part, is eager to return to the embrace of its neighbors and other global leaders.

He has led a charm offensive for years, telling Syrians who fled it is now safe to return.

More recently, Syria has been bankrolling a campaign by Syrian and Western influencers to clean up his country’s image and jumpstart tourism, which has been largely dead for a decade.

But officials have not mapped out how such a shift to normalizing ties might happen. “There is no one who says: we will pick up the phone to call Assad,” said one EU official. “Nobody dares to raise that, but it is a hidden suggestion by some.”

In July, seven EU countries (Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia and Cyprus) called on the EU’s foreign policy chief to review the EU’s strategy for Syria. The goal, they said, was to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria as well as help return migrants to certain regions of the country.

For others, it’s more complicated.

The Netherlands is not ready to back plans for restarting negotiations with Syria as it is not considered a safe country according to the Dutch domestic assessment, its Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told POLITICO.

“The Dutch policy is that Syria is not secure to return asylum seekers. If that will happen in the future, [it] depends on the whole mechanism which is depoliticized [for] the Netherlands to decide to what extent Syria is secure, safe enough for the return of migrants,” he added.

The EU foreign policy chief’s response to the letter from seven EU countries was curt.

“How the Syrian regime has been operating for decades is well known and documented, including with the direct support of both Russia and Iran,” Josep Borrell wrote in a letter dated August 28 and obtained by POLITICO.

“That said, rest assured that the EU has always been ready to explore ways to better support the Syrian people and its legitimate aspirations.”

But some within the EU are adamant it is time to, at the very least, start a discussion, even if it is “too early to say whether we can succeed in anything,” one senior EU diplomat said.

“Assad is there, there is no whitewashing of him but Europe has taken in over 1.2 million Syrian citizens,” said Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, federal minister for European and international affairs.

“Our proposal is an open-minded assessment: where do we stand, where should we go, because we are simply not achieving the results we would like to achieve.”