Israeli Strike Kills Woman and Child in South Lebanon

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on February 21, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on February 21, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. (AFP)
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Israeli Strike Kills Woman and Child in South Lebanon

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on February 21, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. (AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on February 21, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. (AFP)

An Israeli air strike killed a woman and a child in south Lebanon on Wednesday, sources in Lebanon said, days after Hezbollah said it would inflict a price on Israel for killing civilians in the conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The woman and girl were killed in the strike near Majdal Zoun, a village some 6 km (4 miles) from the border, according to two security sources and a medical source.

The father of the six-year-old girl killed said she had asked to visit her village, which they had fled from after the eruption of hostilities last year, in comments broadcast by al-Akhbar newspaper.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has been trading fire with Israel since the Oct. 7 attack by its Palestinian ally Hamas on southern Israel in a campaign Hezbollah says aims to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said its warplanes had struck three Hezbollah operational command centers in southern Lebanon.

It said Israeli army artillery had also fired "to remove a threat" in the areas of Alma al-Shaab and Dhayra, both villages at the border.

The Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment about reports of the strike in Majdal Zoun.

Hezbollah signaled on Friday it would escalate attacks on Israel in response to the deaths of 10 Lebanese civilians in Israeli attacks last week.

Hezbollah announced more than half a dozen attacks on Israeli positions on Wednesday.

Israeli strikes since Oct. 8 have killed some 50 civilians in Lebanon, in addition to nearly 200 Hezbollah fighters.

Attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and five civilians.

The violence has uprooted tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.



Syrian Intelligence Says It Foiled ISIS Attempt to Target Damascus Shrine

A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
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Syrian Intelligence Says It Foiled ISIS Attempt to Target Damascus Shrine

A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)
A general view of the city during the year's first sunrise on New Year's Day, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 1, 2025. (Reuters)

Intelligence officials in Syria's new de facto government thwarted a plan by the ISIS group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, state media reported Saturday.

State news agency SANA reported, citing an unnamed official in the General Intelligence Service, that members of the ISIS cell planning the attack were arrested.  

It quoted the official as saying that the intelligence service is “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums.”

Sayyida Zeinab has been the site of past attacks on Shiite pilgrims by ISIS.

In 2023, a motorcycle planted with explosives detonated in Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least six people and wounding dozens.

The announcement that the attack had been thwarted appeared to be another attempt by the country's new leaders to reassure religious minorities, including those seen as having been supporters of the former government of Bashar al-Assad.

Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, was allied with Iran and with the Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah as well as Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the former opposition group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month and is now the de facto ruling party in the country, is a group that formerly had ties with al-Qaeda.

The group later split from al-Qaeda, and HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa has preached religious coexistence since assuming power in Damascus.

Also Saturday, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati arrived in Damascus to meet with al-Sharaa.

Relations between the two countries had been strained under Assad, with Lebanon's political factions deeply divided between those supporting and opposing Assad's rule.