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Two Air Strikes Hit Lebanon’s Ghaziyeh, 60 km North of Israel Border, Witnesses Say

Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
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Two Air Strikes Hit Lebanon’s Ghaziyeh, 60 km North of Israel Border, Witnesses Say

Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)

At least two air strikes hit near the town of Ghaziyeh on Lebanon's coast around 60 km (37 miles) north of the border with Israel on Monday, according to witnesses in the area.

The witnesses heard several loud booms and saw two thick black columns of smoke emanating from around the town.

Lebanon's state media said the strikes were Israeli and that one of them hit a car.

In response to a query from Reuters, the Israeli military said it was "checking".

Israel has been carrying out air strikes along the border area in south Lebanon against the armed group Hezbollah, which has fired rockets across the frontier. Israel has carried out strikes only rarely further north of the frontier zone.

More than 170 Hezbollah fighters and nearly three dozen civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Hezbollah launched rockets onto Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, according to Hezbollah's announced figures and a Reuters count of civilian deaths.

Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli figures. Israel's air, land and sea bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people since then, Palestinian health officials say.

Last week, two sets of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed 10 civilians and several Hezbollah fighters, including a commander in the group's elite Radwan force.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Israel would pay "in blood" for the killings of civilians.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Lebanon would "pay a heavy price" if diplomatic means failed to remove Hezbollah from the border zone.

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Arab World

Netanyahu Says Israel Is Expanding ‘Buffer Zone’ in Lebanon

Smoke billows from an Israeli strike on Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. (AFP)
Smoke billows from an Israeli strike on Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. (AFP)
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Netanyahu Says Israel Is Expanding ‘Buffer Zone’ in Lebanon

Smoke billows from an Israeli strike on Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. (AFP)
Smoke billows from an Israeli strike on Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. (AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that his country's forces were expanding a "buffer zone" in southern Lebanon as the military pressed ahead with its campaign against Hezbollah.

"We have created a genuine security zone preventing any infiltration toward the Galilee and the northern border," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

"We are expanding this zone to push the threat from anti-tank missiles further away and to establish a broader buffer zone."

Netanyahu said that dismantling Hezbollah "remains central" to Israel's objectives in Lebanon.

"It is connected to the broader confrontation with Iran," he said.

"We are determined to profoundly transform the situation in Lebanon," he added.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Arab World

Strike on Western Iraq Kills Seven Security Personnel

Members of Iraq's PMF carry the coffin of the PMF operations commander for Al-Anbar, Saad Dawai alongside others during a mass funeral in Baghdad on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
Members of Iraq's PMF carry the coffin of the PMF operations commander for Al-Anbar, Saad Dawai alongside others during a mass funeral in Baghdad on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
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Strike on Western Iraq Kills Seven Security Personnel

Members of Iraq's PMF carry the coffin of the PMF operations commander for Al-Anbar, Saad Dawai alongside others during a mass funeral in Baghdad on March 24, 2026. (AFP)
Members of Iraq's PMF carry the coffin of the PMF operations commander for Al-Anbar, Saad Dawai alongside others during a mass funeral in Baghdad on March 24, 2026. (AFP)

A strike on a base in western Iraq killed seven security personnel, the defense ministry said Wednesday, a day after an attack on the same base targeted the Popular Mobilization Forces.

"This resulted in the death of seven of our heroic fighters and the injury of 13 others," the ministry said of the strike in Anbar province, saying it specifically targeted the base's military healthcare clinic.

Rescue operations were ongoing, it added.

The base hosts Iraqi police, soldiers from the regular army and PMF, a security official told AFP.

It was hit by a deadly strike on Tuesday that the former paramilitaries blamed on the United States.

Iraq said late on Tuesday it would summon the US charge d'affaires and the Iranian ambassador after deadly strikes blamed on their countries, as Iraqi authorities granted the targeted groups the "right to respond".

Iraq has been pulled into the war sparked by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, and which has since engulfed much of the region.

Iraq has long been a proxy battleground for the United States and Iran, and has struggled to balance diplomatic ties with both countries.

Since the war began, pro-Iran armed groups have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region, while strikes have also targeted these groups, including state-linked positions.

In the statement from the prime minister's office, however, Iraq granted former paramilitaries within the official armed forces the right to "respond to military attacks" by drones and aircraft that targeted their headquarters.

Arab World

Spanish PM Says Israel Wants to Inflict on Lebanon ‘Same Destruction’ as in Gaza

A man walks along a street strewn with building debris at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 25, 2026. (AFP)
A man walks along a street strewn with building debris at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 25, 2026. (AFP)
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Spanish PM Says Israel Wants to Inflict on Lebanon ‘Same Destruction’ as in Gaza

A man walks along a street strewn with building debris at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 25, 2026. (AFP)
A man walks along a street strewn with building debris at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 25, 2026. (AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "seeks to inflict the same level of damage and destruction" on Lebanon as Israeli ‌forces had ‌wrought on ‌the Gaza ⁠Strip, Spanish Prime ⁠Minister Pedro Sanchez told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Sanchez, who appeared before the ⁠lower house ‌to ‌explain his government's stance ‌against the ‌US-Israeli war on Iran, added that Iran's new Supreme ‌Leader was more hardline than his predecessor.

"Mojtaba ⁠Khamenei ⁠is an equally dictatorial and even more bloodthirsty tyrant than his father," Sanchez said.

Sanchez warned that the Middle East war presented a "far worse" scenario than the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq. We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper," he added.