Two injured in Israeli drone strike on Nabatieh, south Lebanon: Day 125 of Hamas-Israel war

Thank you for following our LIVE coverage from day 125 of the Hamas-Israel war.

We'll be back tomorrow with more news updates and analysis, right here at L'Orient Today.

Speaker of parliament Nabih Berri receiving a French delegation in Ain al-Tineh, Feb. 8, 2024. (Credit: Hassan Ibrahim/Lebanese Parliament)

Lebanese Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri told a meeting of French diplomats today he believes in a need to "strengthen the Lebanese Army" against a backdrop of cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli army over the past four months.

During the meeting in Ain al-Tineh, Berri and French officials discussed "the general situation in Lebanon and the region." Berri assured French officials of "Lebanon's commitment to the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701" and the "need to reinforce the Lebanese Army, in terms of recruits and equipment."

👉 Read more here.

Microsoft publishes report on Iranian cyberattacks Screengrab of a disruption of streaming TV programming using an AI-generated broadcaster, by Cotton Sandstorm, an Iranian hacking group. (Credit: Microsoft report)

Microsoft released a report about the acceleration of Iranian government-aligned cyberattacks carried out since the Hamas-Israel war started on Oct. 7.

According to the tech company's analysts, operations by hacker groups associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, were — at first — "hasty and chaotic, indicating it had little or no coordination with Hamas, but it nevertheless has achieved growing success."

The report claims that Iran’s cyber op activity quickly grew from nine "Microsoft-tracked groups" active in Israel during the first week of the war to 14, two weeks into the war.

👉 Read more here.

Israeli Air Force Commander Tomer Bar said that "dozens of aircraft are currently flying over southern Lebanon, and as soon as the order comes, dozens will become hundreds executing the missions within minutes," cited in a post published by the Israeli army's Arabic-speaking spokesperson Avichay Adraee on X.

Bar made these comments while speaking about a potential "war scenario" on the northern front with Lebanon during an Israeli air force conference this week.

The conference was held to present Israeli war operations "from its first day until now" in addition to plans for 2024, "defined as a combat year." According to a communique published on the Israeli army's website, the year ahead involves strengthening "combat in the southern arena and the readiness for combat in the northern arena."

Nicaragua has asked to formally join South Africa's genocide case against Israel, say the UN's top court, cited by AFP. Managua claims it has "interests of a legal nature" in the highly contested hearings.

The Central American country last month announced plans to attach itself to the application by Pretoria, which brought Israel before the International Court of Justice on allegations of genocide based on its actions in Gaza.

Managua filed its own application on Jan. 23 — which the Hague-based ICJ confirmed today — saying its decision flowed from "the universal character both of the condemnation of genocide and of the cooperation required 'in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge'," the court said in a press release.

👉 Read the full report here.

The US State Department has expressed its concern following Israel's declaration that its army is planning an operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, Haaretz reports.

A spokesperson for the department, Vedant Patel, said: "To conduct such an operation right now with no planning and little thought, in an area where there is sheltering of a million people, would be a disaster."

Today, Israeli forces bombed areas in Rafah, killing at least 11 people in strikes on two houses. Tanks also shelled some areas in eastern Rafah, intensifying the residents' fears of an imminent ground assault.

During yesterdays press conference, Netanyahu told reporters he had ordered troops to advance on Rafah, Gaza's southern-most city, crammed with almost two million people, a mix of residents and those who have fled from north and central Gaza.

The Israeli army confirmed they have targeted a Hezbollah "commander" in southern Lebanon and that its fighter jets attacked a series of Hezbollah targets in Khiam, Nabatieh and Kfar Hammam.

Haaretz, citing the army, say the targets included a truck carrying weapons and a "Hezbollah military structure of the organization."

In response to the strike in Nabatieh, Hezbollah says it has attacked the Meron air surveillance base in northern Israelat 7:30 p.m., using Falaq missiles.

Here are the latest updates from the Israel-Lebanon border:

• Israeli warplanes carried out a raid on Tal al-Nahas, Marjayoun district, and a second one on Kfar Kila, also Marjeyoun, eyewitnesses told our correspondent in the south.

• Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of Rashaya Fawqar and Kfar Hammam, both in Hasbaya district, residents told L'Orient Today.

• Hezbollah announced that it targeted the Israeli weapon-launching site of al-Zaoura with guided missiles at 4:18 p.m. and the Israeli military position of Birkat Risha, facing the Lebanese border village of Boustane, in Sour district, with two Burkan missiles at 4:35 p.m.

A resident of Nabatieh city provided our correspondent in the south with more information about the strike that targeted a Hezbollah official's car earlier today:

According to his testimony, which is shared by many other residents in the city, prior to the strike, Israeli drones followed the car in the al-Bayad neighborhood and failed to hit it in a first attempt.

The drones continued to pursue the car and hit it from the side while it was stopped in traffic near the Hassan Kamal al-Sabah statue. Those inside managed jump out of it before it was targeted.

A Hezbollah military official was seriously injured the Israeli drone strike that targeted his car in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, earlier today, a Lebanese security source told AFP.

The official "was seriously wounded and a person accompanying him was also injured," said the source, who requested anonymity.

The Lebanese army blocked off the area where the car was hit, on a main street in the city, according to an AFP photographer on the scene. When questioned by AFP, the Israeli army replied that it was "examining information" about the strike.

According to an Israeli radio correspondent, the military official was killed in the strike — but this has not been confirmed.

Flames rise from the site of an Israeli drone strike that targeted a car at the northern entrance to the city of Nabatieh. (Credit: photo sent by Nabatieh residents to our correspondent)

🔴 Two people were injured in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a car at the northern entrance of the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, near the statue of Hassan Kamal al-Sabah, as reported by Muntasser Abdallah, L'Orient Today's correspondent in the south who spoke with eyewitnesses and the Civil Defense.

The two wounded were transported to a local hospital. This is the first Israeli military operation of this kind to target the town of Nabatieh since cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began on Oct. 8.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong says she did not have all the evidence before deciding to suspend the country's funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA), after Israel claimed 12 staff members were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

Australia, the US, and the UK were among more than 10 donors to suspend funding to UNRWA. Penny Wong told ABC that she is seeking more information from Israel, but that "the allegations are serious enough and UNRWA has recognized that by its own actions."

On Tuesday, British news outlet Channel 4 News reported that "no evidence" was provided in the six-page dossier provided by Israel to UNRWA donors.

US President Joe Biden will host Jordan's King Abdullah in Washington on Feb. 12, the White House says, cited by Reuters. King Abdullah's tour of major Western capitals starts with France and Germany and is focused on ending the war in Gaza.

The two leaders will discuss the ongoing conflict and efforts to "produce an enduring end to the crisis," according to a White House statement.

The Jordanian monarch has been on the throne since 1999 — having celebrated 25 years yesterday. Since then, King Abdullah has visited the United States at least 40 times, mostly on official business, according to the State Department website. His last visit was in 2018.

Here's what has happened at the Lebanon-Israel border so far this afternoon:

• Israeli warplanes fired two missiles on a three-floor building on the outskirts of Tayr Harfa, Sour district around 12;20 p.m., residents told our correspondent in the south. The building was destroyed but no casualties were reported.

• Hezbollah announced that its artillery targeted the Israeli site called Radar, in the occupied Shebaa Farms at 1:40 p.m.

• The party also announced that it hit a building in which Israeli soldiers were present, in the village of Metula, at 2:10 p.m., in response to "Israeli attacks on [Lebanese] villages and civilian homes."

• A security source told L'Orient Today that at around 3:20 p.m., Israeli artillery shelling targeted the villages of Kfar Kila, Tal al-Nahas (Marjayoun), Dhayra, Tayr Harfa (Sour), Ramyah, and Beit Lif (Bint Jbeil).

A German navy frigate left this morning for the Red Sea, where it is to secure sea freight disrupted by attacks from Houthi rebels and take part in an EU naval mission currently being prepared.

This is "the most serious commitment by a German naval unit in many decades," naval inspector Jan Christian Kaack told reporters in Berlin.

Tensions off the coast of Yemen are affecting the delivery of essential goods to a country ravaged by nearly a decade of war, threatening to exacerbate one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, say aid organizations.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), for its part, claims to have "noted delays in the delivery of basic necessities, including pharmaceutical products," as well as a rise in the price of food and fuel on the local market, reports AFP.

Fellow journalists mourn over the body of Hamza Wael Dahdouh, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television network, who was killed in a reported Israeli air strike during his funeral in Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Jan. 7, 2024. (Credit: AFP)

“The toll of four months of war in Gaza on journalism is simply horrifying.”

Reporters Without Borders draws up a chilling assessment of the impact of the war on the press.

Read the full story here.

Hamas has expressed openness to continuing to try to negotiate a cease-fire even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly rejected Hamas's proposal Wednesday evening, AFP reports.

"We expect the negotiations to be very complex and difficult but Hamas is open to discussions and the movement is keen to reach a cease-fire," an official speaking on the condition of anonymity told AFP.

While Netanyahu has been open to negotiating the release of the hostages, he has refused any ideas that there would be a permanent cease-fire before Israel achieves "total victory" by eliminating Hamas in Gaza. 

Gaza's health ministry announced that the death toll in Gaza reached 27,840 with 67,317 others wounded since Oct. 7, AFP reports.

The ministry added that, in the last 24 hours, 130 people were killed.

A Palestinian man mourns after identifying the body of a relative killed in overnight Israeli bombardment on the southern Gaza Strip at Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah on Feb. 8, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its fifth month. (Credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP)

The situation in southern Lebanon over the past hour and a half:

- Artillery fire targeted an area between Rashaya al-Foukhar and Hebbarieh (Hasbaya), according to residents.

- Artillery fire also hit the outskirts of Kfar Kila (Marjayoun), according to residents, who claim that a house was targeted.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued his talks in Israel with a view to reaching an agreement for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip, on the last day of his Middle East tour.

In Tel Aviv, he met Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, two former Israeli army chiefs who joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet after Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

The talks focused on "the hostages and the strong desire we have to see them returned to their families, and the work that is being done to that end", Blinken said just before the talks. "The most urgent thing remains of course to find the means to bring the hostages back," and "once that is done, a lot can be achieved," he emphasized.

Two days after French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne's visit to Lebanon, caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati received French Ambassador to Lebanon Herve Magro.

At the end of the meeting, Magro said he had presented the prime minister with Paris's "ideas" concerning the situation in southern Lebanon.

Iranian ambassador Mojtaba Amani announced on "X" that "the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hussein Amirabdollahian, will arrive in Beirut tomorrow, where he will hold important meetings" with Lebanese leaders.

Photo provided by L'Orient Today's correspondent in southern Lebanon

Nabil Qaouq, a member of Hezbollah's Central Council, declared that the "resistance" was "ready for all eventualities," stressing that the party's position on truce negotiations was to demand first and foremost "an end to the Israeli offensive in Gaza."

Read the full story here.

The situation in southern Lebanon:

- Hezbollah announced in a statement that at 8:35 a.m. it had targeted the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade of the Galilee 91 Division, located in the Kiryat Shmona barracks opposite Houla (Marjayoun).

- Earlier, Haaretz had reported that rockets had fallen in an open area near Kiryat Shmona, without causing any casualties, and that the Israeli army had retaliated.

- Israeli artillery targeted the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab (Bint Jbeil), according to local residents.

- An Israeli aircraft again bombed the southern outskirts of Khiam (Marjayoun).

The international anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington has become a "factor of instability" in Iraq, blasted General Yehia Rasool, military spokesman for Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, the day after a new US strike killed a senior commander of a pro-Iran armed group in the capital Baghdad, reports AFP.

"This path pushes the Iraqi government more than ever to put an end to the mission of this coalition, which has become a factor of instability in Iraq, and threatens to drag Iraq into a regional conflict," he castigated.

Hezbollah, in a statement, condemned the killing of the Iraqi Kataeb Hezbollah commander Wissam Mohamad Saber (nicknamed Abou Baqir al-Saadi) last night by US forces and called it a "continuation to its [US] previous crimes and ongoing aggression on our nation people in Iraqi, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen." In a statement, Hezbollah said that it has "total trust in the freedom fighters of our nation in Iraq that are keen to continue the rhetoric of the resistance and liberation."

Yesterday's strike in Baghdad was undertaken almost a week after US bombings in Iraq and Syria and comes as Washington has pledged to continue retaliating against pro-Iranian armed groups: a drone strike on Jan. 28 killed three US soldiers in the Jordanian desert on the Syrian border.

The situation in southern Lebanon in the morning:

- Israeli artillery fired in the vicinity of Tayr Harfa and Jibbain (Sour) and between Yarine and Dhairah (Sour), according to local residents.

- Artillery fire targeted an area between Kfar Kila and Adaisseh (Marjayoun), according to residents. Three rockets fell on this area.

- Hamamis hill, south of Khiam (Marjayoun), as well as the town, was also targeted by artillery fire, local residents reported. Khiam had already been shelled the previous day.

- At 8.35 a.m., Hezbollah fired rockets towards the Biranit barracks, opposite the Lebanese town of Rmaish (Bint Jbeil).

- According to Haaretz, rockets launched from Lebanon fell near Kiryat Shmona, a town further east than the barracks targeted by Hezbollah.

An update on events in southern Lebanon last night:

- At 8.23 p.m., Hezbollah announced that it had targeted a group of Israeli soldiers in the Margaliot area, opposite the Lebanese town of Markaba.

Between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., according to security sources:

- Israeli artillery fire targeted a forest on the outskirts of Yaroun (Bint Jbeil), as well as the outskirts of Houla and Markaba (Marjayoun).

- Artillery fire targeted the outskirts of Adaisseh and Kfar Kila (Marjayoun).

- At 9 p.m., Hezbollah announced it had targeted an Israeli position in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

Between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.:

- Israeli artillery fire targeted the outskirts of Halta, Kfar Shouba, as well as the Rashaya al-Foukhar area (Hasbaya).

Former hostages (2-L to R) Sahar Calderon, Aviva Siegel, Adina Moshe, Nili Margalit and Sharon Aloni Cunio, who were abducted by the Palestinian Hamas movement on Oct. 7, 2023 and later released during a cease fire agreement, give a statement to the

In Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening, freed hostages gathered to implore the Netanyahu government to negotiate a deal for the release of those still in Hamas's hands in Gaza.

"I was there for 52 days. Why did I, a 16-year-old girl, have to live through such a nightmare? ... I may be alive and breathing, but my soul has been killed. And all those who are there are killed again every day," said Sahar Calderon, whose father is still being held in Gaza.

Egypt and Qatar are sponsoring "a new round of negotiations" starting today in Cairo, aimed at achieving "calm in the Gaza Strip" and an exchange of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages, an Egyptian official told AFP.

Hamas said in the morning that a delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya, a senior member of its political bureau, was expected in Cairo.

Concerning negotiations on a possible truce:

During his tour, Antony Blinken supported the truce proposal drawn up by American, Qatari and Egyptian officials in Paris at the end of January, to which Hamas responded.

While he considered some elements of Hamas's response "unacceptable," Blinken nevertheless said he hoped for a second truce after the week-long one in November, which had led to the release of hostages in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

On the diplomatic front:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is to round off his Middle East tour with a meeting with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, following separate talks on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

While the diplomat called for a truce to allow more humanitarian aid and the release of hostages, he also urged Israel to "protect" civilians as it continues its military operations.

"As far as Rafah is concerned ... Israel has a responsibility and an obligation to do everything possible to ensure that civilians are protected and have access to the aid they need," Blinken said overnight.

"The Israelis were dehumanized in the most horrific way on Oct. 7, and the hostages have been dehumanized every day since. But this cannot be used as an excuse to dehumanize others. The overwhelming majority of Gaza's population had nothing to do with the Oct. 7 attacks," he added.

The latest developments in Gaza:

After Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement on the "preparation" of an offensive on Rafah, a town located on the closed border with Egypt, where there are 1.3 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are people displaced by the clashes in recent months, deadly strikes have been launched on the south of the enclave.

The Gazan health ministry counted a total of 109 deaths from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning.

Check out the Morning Brief so that you can catch up on what has been happening.

Morning Brief

Three killed in Israeli strikes, UNRWA Lebanon risks closing, Israel rejects Hamas cease-fire proposal: Everything you need to know to start your Thursday

Good morning!

Thank you for joining us for our live coverage of the ongoing war in Gaza.