Hezbollah Launches Drone Attack on Northern Israel

An Israeli shelling hits an area in Lebanon next to the Israeli-Lebanese border at the Galilee region as seen from the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
An Israeli shelling hits an area in Lebanon next to the Israeli-Lebanese border at the Galilee region as seen from the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
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Hezbollah Launches Drone Attack on Northern Israel

An Israeli shelling hits an area in Lebanon next to the Israeli-Lebanese border at the Galilee region as seen from the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)
An Israeli shelling hits an area in Lebanon next to the Israeli-Lebanese border at the Galilee region as seen from the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. (AP)

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack early Monday on northern Israel that the Israeli military said wounded two troops and set off a fire.

The violence came as fears of an all-out regional war mount following the killings last week of a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and Hamas’ top political leader in Iran.

Hezbollah said in a statement it targeted a military base in northern Israel in response to “attacks and assassinations” carried out by Israel in several villages in south Lebanon.

The attack did not appear to be part of a more intense retaliation expected in response to the killing of Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut’s southern suburbs last week.

The Israeli military said fire services were working to put out a fire that was ignited as a result of the attack in Ayelet HaShahar in the upper Galilee.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Monday an Israeli drone strike near a cemetery in a southern village killed two people, including a paramedic.
The agency did not give further details about the morning strike in the village of Meissa al-Jabal. It said one of the dead was a member of the Islamic Risala Scout Association paramedic group. The group identified the member killed as Mohammed Fawzi Hamadi.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, but they have previously kept the conflict at a low level that had not escalated into full-on war.
Last week’s assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and Shukur in Beirut raised tensions in the region. Israel has been bracing for a retaliation from Iran and its allied militias.



Heads of CIA, MI6 Issue Joint Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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Heads of CIA, MI6 Issue Joint Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

The heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies said Saturday they are “working ceaselessly” for a ceasefire in Gaza, using a rare joint public statement to press for peace.

CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore said their agencies had “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation.”

In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, the two spymasters said a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war “could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement.”

Burns has been heavily involved in efforts to broker an end to the fighting, traveling to Egypt in August for high-level talks aimed at bringing about a hostage deal and at least a temporary halt to the conflict.

So far there has been no agreement, though United States officials insist a deal is close.

Burns and Moore also stressed the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship in the face of “an unprecedented array of threats,” including an assertive Russia, an ever-more powerful China and the constant threat from international terrorism — all complicated by rapid technological change.

They highlighted Russia’s “reckless campaign of sabotage” across Europe and the “cynical use of technology to spread lies and disinformation designed to drive wedges between us.”

The article is the first joint opinion piece by the heads of the two spy agencies. The two directors pointed to a new era of openness in their secretive field, noting that the CIA and MI6 both declassified intelligence about Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine before Moscow attacked its neighbor in February 2022.