Syria: Explosion Kills 2 Members of Pro-Hezbollah Golan Regiment

Syria's Quneitra (SOHR)
Syria's Quneitra (SOHR)
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Syria: Explosion Kills 2 Members of Pro-Hezbollah Golan Regiment

Syria's Quneitra (SOHR)
Syria's Quneitra (SOHR)

Two members of the Golan Regiment, a group close to the Lebanese Hezbollah, were killed and two others were injured as an IED targeted their car in the village of Al-Qusayba in the southern countryside of Quneitra.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported Saturday the death of one member of the Golan Regiment forces and three injuries.

However, a member died later as a result of his injuries, bringing the death toll to two.

Last week, the Observatory reported that unknown gunmen opened fire on a post of the regime’s ally forces of Golan Regiment in the Jaba town in Quneitra’s countryside. The attack left a member of the Regiment dead.

As part of the targeted assassinations in Daraa and Quneitra provinces in southern Syria, the Quneitra Today network wrote on its Facebook page Sunday that Lieutenant Mohammed al-Abdallah, a member of Qunaitra’s police, was killed by unknown gunmen in an ambush when his patrol was passing near the west Samadaniyah junction.

On January 7, SOHR activists said another IED exploded in a car carrying people on the road to Mumtanah in the central countryside of Quneitra. It targeted a former opposition leader of the Martyrs of Al-Quneitra faction who struck a reconciliation deal and joined the Military Security “branch 220” with several members of the faction. The explosion killed the leader and injured three other people who were escorting him.

In the countryside of Daraa, the Observatory documented the death of an ex-fighter of “Fajr Al-Islam” faction, after being shot Sunday in Tafas city in west Daraa countryside.

The victim was part of Al-Za’bi tribe, which has clashed with “Kiwan” tribe for days, as tension continues to prevail in the Tafas city.

The London-based watchdog wrote that although tribal and military officials mediated between the two sides in order to defuse the bloody conflict, no solutions have been reached.

Since the beginning of the security chaos in Daraa in early June 2019, Syrian Observatory activists have documented more than 853 attacks and assassination attempts by gunfire and detonations of IEDs, motorcycle-bombs and car-bombs. The attacks have claimed the lives of 564 persons.



Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb

An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated two women in their 50s who were wounded in northern Israel.

It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.