Hezbollah's response 'did not impact' truce talks, White House says: Day 326 of the Gaza war

Thank you for following our live coverage of the Gaza war and its implications on the region, particularly Lebanon. 

We will resume reporting tomorrow morning. 

Israeli airstrikes targeted the village center of Khiam, in the Marjayoun district, reported our correspondent.

Israeli aircraft also broke the sound barrier again, causing detonations heard in Saida, as well as in Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa.

Talks on a cease-fire and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, which began a few days ago in Cairo, Egypt, are continuing in Doha, Qatar, an American official told AFP today.

Brett McGurk, President Joe Biden's Middle East adviser, is in Doha for the talks.

(Credit: Photo provided by al-Rissala Scouts Civil Defense to our correspondent)

Here are the latest updates on the situation in South Lebanon:

- The Civil Defense of al-Rissala Scouts, affiliated with the Amal movement, reported helping people evacuate after the Israeli attack on Odeisseh, in the Marjayoun district. The organization added that it had transported one of the wounded to a nearby hospital.

- Israeli aircraft broke the sound barrier twice over South Lebanon. The detonation was heard in Saida and several other areas in the region, according to our correspondent.

The Israeli airstrike on Odaisseh (Marjayoun) injured three people, who were later taken to nearby hospitals, reported our correspondent in the region. 

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an exploding drone attack on Israeli spy equipment in Ibad, opposite the Lebanese village of Houla (Marjayoun).

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told Reuters that one of the rockets launched from southern Lebanon on Sunday during Hezbollah's retaliation against Israel was fired near a peacekeepers' position.

The UN force said it detected a "high number of air strikes and rockets launched in its area of operations." 

UNIFIL spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel highlighted, "One such launch was detected from near one of our positions in Hanniyeh," a village in the Sour district in southern Lebanon, some 10 km from the border with Israel.

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An Israeli airstrike targeted Odaisseh, in southern Lebanon's Marjayoun district, residents told our correspondent in the region. 

In a meeting with the U.S Ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, caretaker Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has affirmed that Lebanon "is committed to extending the mandate of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) by one year, without any change in the expected decision of the U.N. Security Council to this effect", reported the National News Agency (NNA).

Bou Habib and Johnson also discussed the current situation in South Lebanon and "Israel's ongoing aggression against Lebanese territory," as well as the situation in Gaza. Washington is one of the mediating countries, along with Egypt and Qatar, in the truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

(Credit: Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike that destroyed several houses in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on Aug. 27, 2024. 

The Israeli army shelled the villages of Abbasieh and Majidieh, both in southern Lebanon's Hasbaya district. 

In Majidieh, residents reported that a vehicle was hit and caught fire due to the shelling.

Hezbollah announced its first two attacks today:

- Using an exploding drone, it targeted and destroyed "renovated spy equipment" near the Israeli barracks in Doviv, facing the Lebanese village of Yaroun at 2:55 p.m.

- It also targeted "a building used by Israeli soldiers" in Natoua, in the southern Golan Heights.

The Israeli army announced that it had rescued Kaid Farhan Alkadi, a Bedouin from southern Israel, who was being held hostage in the Gaza Strip during "a complex operation" in the south of the Palestinian territory, reports AFP.

"The army and the Shin Bet (Israeli domestic intelligence service) rescued the hostage Kaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, from Rahat," a Bedouin town in the Negev desert, "who had been kidnapped by the terrorist organization Hamas and taken to the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7," the army said in a statement.

Photo sent by the Civil Defense of the Scouts of al-Rissala to L'Orient Today's correspondent

Latest developments in southern Lebanon:

- Israeli artillery targeted Tal al-Nahas, near the town of Borj al-Moulouk (Marjayoun) with at least three shells, reports L'Orient Today's correspondent.

- The al-Rissala Scouts Civil Defense (affiliated with the Amal movement) reported helping to extinguish fires that broke out after white phosphorus bombings on Mais al-Jabal (Marjayoun).

Israeli artillery fired phosphorus shells at Mais al-Jabal (Marjayoun), residents told L'Orient Today's correspondent.

A fire broke out in the area.

Palestinian women stand near the damaged site of a drone strike in Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Aug. 27, 2024. (Credit: Mohammed Torokman/Reuters)

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Majadal left three people injured.

Two of them were treated on-site, while the third, suffering from moderate injuries, was transferred to the Lebanese-Italian hospital for treatment.

The Israeli airstrike that targeted Shihine moderately injured one individual who was hospitalized, the ministry added.

According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, the Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Majadal left three people injured.

Two of them were treated on-site, while the third, suffering from moderate injuries, was transferred to the Lebanese-Italian hospital for treatment.

The Israeli airstrike that targeted Shihine moderately injured one individual who was hospitalized, the ministry added.

About 20 relatives of hostages and activists briefly blocked the Tel Aviv highway to demand an agreement on the return of their family members, Haaretz reported.

The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip announced a new death toll of 40,476 in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war.

At least 41 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement, adding that 93,647 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since October 7. 

According to L'Orient Today's correspondent, three people were injured in the Israeli strike that targeted the village of Majadal. 

A potentially disastrous exchange of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border between Hezbollah and Israel on Sunday allowed both sides to save face and avoid all-out war, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The morning's limited escalation – though the largest since the two sides began exchanging fire in October – allowed Hezbollah to exact revenge and Israel to display confidence in its security apparatus.

In the 26 days since the assassination of Hezbollah's top military commander, Fouad Shukur, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Israel and the region have braced for a response from the Lebanese group. Airlines have suspended flights, residents of Tel Aviv and Beirut have stocked up on water, and diplomats have scrambled to avert an all-out war.

But after the spectacular but short-lived exchange of rockets, missiles and drones that rocked the Lebanese-Israeli border early Sunday, analysts say the potentially disastrous attacks were more of a face-saving move, allowing each side to move back from the brink of a broader conflict.

"Both Hezbollah and Israel are happy with the results, which makes it less likely that an all-out war will break out," a senior Middle East diplomat familiar with the regional discussions said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli drones are flying over the Dahr al-Baidar area, particularly the Damascus Road, the main road linking Beirut to the Bekaa Valley. 

Royal Jordanian Airlines announced on Monday that it will resume flights to and from Beirut, starting Tuesday morning, Aug. 27, Jordanian news website Roya News reported.

The announcement comes after a temporary suspension due to attacks between Hezbollah and Israel that raised fears of a regional conflagration.

The Israeli military said five "air targets" entered Israeli territory from Lebanon on Monday night and most were intercepted, Haaretz reported.

This morning, Israeli drones targeted the village of Majadel, east of Tyre, L'Orient Today's correspondent reports.

At around 8 a.m., a missile was fired at the heights of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, but the shell did not explode.

Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Baqeri said the response to the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran was "inevitable and unavoidable."

"The assassination of the martyr Haniyeh in Tehran cannot be forgotten, and revenge by the axis of resistance or by Iran is inevitable," he stressed, according to comments reported by Sky News Arabia and taken up by the National News Agency (NNA).

In southern Lebanon last night, at 11 p.m., Israel bombarded the outskirts of Dhaira and Tayr Harfa, as well as Beit Leif, Wadi Zebqine, Shihine, Umm al-Tout and Aita al-Shaab (Sour) with heavy artillery.

The Israeli army announced on Monday evening that it had carried out an airstrike on the Palestinian refugee camp of Nur Shams, in the north of the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority recorded five deaths as a result of the attack.

"An aircraft recently attacked an operations center in the Nur Shams area," said a statement from the Israeli army, without giving further details. " Five dead were taken to the government hospital in Tulkarem following a bombardment by the [Israeli] occupation on the Nur Shams camp," according to a statement from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Asked by AFP, the Israeli army press service did not give details on the nature of the aircraft used in the attack, nor on the intended target. According to the military correspondent of the Times of Israel and the Palestinian agency Wafa, the raid was carried out using a drone.

Fears of a spread of the conflict have prompted several airlines to suspend flights to countries in the Middle East.

Interrupted since Sunday, Air France and Transavia flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut should however resume today.

In South Lebanon, a car was targeted by an Israeli drone strike in Saida on Monday. The targeted Palestinian official escaped.

On Monday, new strikes and gunfire rocked several areas of the Gaza Strip, according to AFP journalists and witnesses.

At least five people were killed in a strike targeting a house in the northern city of Gaza, medics said.

Following a new round of negotiations that began Thursday in Cairo with the Israelis, the spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, John Kirby, reported Monday "progress" in the ongoing discussions on a truce accompanied by the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

"We expect these discussions ... to continue at least in the coming days," he said, assuring that the attack carried out on Sunday against Israel by Hezbollah "had no consequences" on the discussions.

The United Nations expressed concern Monday about its ability to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a day after new Israeli evacuation orders raised fears of a worsening of the situation in the Palestinian territory ravaged by the war between Israel and Hamas.

"This decision calls into question an entire humanitarian hub that had been set up in Deir el-Balah following the evacuation of Rafah last May, and it has a considerable impact on our ability to provide essential support and services," OCHA deplored.

The director-general of the World Health Organization said nearby health facilities were now "at risk of no longer functioning," including the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Be sure to read the Morning Brief so you are caught up with what has been happening.

Morning Brief

Failed assassination in Saida and Hamas strikes Tel Aviv: Everything you need to know to start your Tuesday

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Thank you for joining us for our live coverage of the ongoing war in Gaza and its regional and global impacts.