Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Kill at Least 7, Including a Child, State Media Report

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila on August 21, 2024.(AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila on August 21, 2024.(AFP)
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Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Kill at Least 7, Including a Child, State Media Report

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila on August 21, 2024.(AFP)
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila on August 21, 2024.(AFP)

Five Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday killed at least eight people, including a child and several Hezbollah fighters, state media reported.

A drone strike in the town of Aita al-Jabal killed a 7-year-old child along with one other person, the Lebanese health ministry said.

The Israeli military said the strike killed Mohammad Mahmoud Najem, an operative in Hezbollah’s drone and rocket unit.

Iran-backed Hezbollah later confirmed Najem’s death and also announced the deaths of four other members Friday.

Photographs from the scene showed a burned-out small pickup truck.

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has been clashing nearly daily with Israeli forces in the border region for more than 10 months. The clashes have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon — most of them fighters but including more than 100 civilians and noncombatants — and 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.



Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Syrian Youth Will Resist Incoming Government

A defaced portrait of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen in Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024 (issued 22 December 2024). (EPA)
A defaced portrait of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen in Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024 (issued 22 December 2024). (EPA)
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Syrian Youth Will Resist Incoming Government

A defaced portrait of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen in Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024 (issued 22 December 2024). (EPA)
A defaced portrait of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen in Damascus, Syria, 18 December 2024 (issued 22 December 2024). (EPA)

Iran's supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar sl-Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country.

Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria's nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family's decades-long rule. Syria had long served as a key conduit for Iranian aid to Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in an address on Sunday that the “young Syrian has nothing to lose" and suffers from insecurity following Assad's fall.

“What can he do? He should stand with strong will against those who designed and those who implemented the insecurity," Khamenei said. “God willing, he will overcome them.”

He accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad's government in order to seize resources, saying: “Now they feel victory, the Americans, the Zionist regime and those who accompanied them.”

Iran and its armed proxies in the region have suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year, with Israel battering Hamas in Gaza and landing heavy blows on Hezbollah before they agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last month.

Khamenei denied that such groups were proxies of Iran, saying they fought because of their own beliefs and that Tehran did not depend on them. “If one day we plan to take action, we do not need proxy force,” he said.