Israel-Hamas war: Lebanon’s Hezbollah joins cross-border clashes

Israel has battled into the fifth week of its war against Hamas and marked the milestone by sharing disturbing footage of the bloody aftermath at the Tribe of Nova music festival massacre.

“Four weeks ago today, 200+ young Israelis were butchered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival,” the country’s official X account wrote Saturday.

The Israeli army said its troops had launched an operation in southern Gaza overnight, after deadly strikes hit an ambulance convoy and a school-turned-refugee shelter in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The IDF said it had come under attack several times from Hamas “tunnel shafts and military compounds” in northern Gaza and had killed many “terrorists” and destroyed three observation posts. Hamas said it had hit an Israeli convoy with mortar fire.

Meanwhile, there are concerns Hassan Nasrallah, who runs Lebanon’s Hezbollah, could escalate the conflict with Israel leading to a war on two fronts.

Nasrallah said “all options are open” depending on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The US immediately warned Hezbollah, an Iranian backed anti-Israel militant group, not to “take advantage” of the conflict.

But one particular comment Nasrallah made raised eyebrows. He sought to distance both Hezbollah and its backer Iran from Hamas’ October 7 massacre saying it was a “100 per cent Palestinian” organised attack which had been “kept secret” from all others.

Since October 7, Israel has been engaged in a fierce war with Hamas, after the Palestinian militant group that rules the region carried out a deadly attack in southern Israel that killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, according to Israeli officials. Israel has retaliated with relentless strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza, where more than 9,400 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Read on for the latest updates.

Israel releases disturbing video of music festival massacre

Israel shared a disturbing video of the bloody aftermath of Hamas’ massacre at the Tribe of Nova music festival to mark four weeks since the terror attack.

“Four weeks ago today, 200+ young Israelis were butchered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival,” the country’s official X account wrote Saturday.

“This is what the aftermath looked like through the eyes of an IDF soldier who came to rescue survivors.

‘Don’t look away.”

The footage shows an IDF soldier helping secure the desolate festival ground while walking among the bloodied bodies of dead revellers.

At one point, the soldier peers over a large bar, only to find several more victims sprawled between the coolers.

‘Targeted raid’

The Israeli military describes Gaza City as “the centre of the Hamas terror organisation” and says it is targeting militants, weapons stores, tunnel complexes and command centres.

Overnight, Israeli ground forces launched “a targeted raid” to map tunnels and clear explosive traps in southern Gaza, where it has struck before but rarely sent in troops, the military said.

“The troops encountered a terrorist cell exiting a tunnel shaft. In response, the troops fired shells toward the terrorists and killed them,” it said.

Israel says it has struck 12,000 targets across the Palestinian territory since October 7, one of the fiercest bombing campaigns in recent memory.

The army on Saturday sent text messages to Gazans saying the territory’s main north-south road would be open for three hours in the afternoon so people can evacuate.

A key focus of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel on Friday was to convince Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enact “humanitarian pauses”.

Netanyahu said later, however, that he would not agree to a “temporary truce” with Hamas until the Islamist group releases more than 240 Israeli and foreign hostages it abducted during its October 7 attack.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah joins cross-border clashes

The Israeli military and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah engaged in cross-border clashes on Saturday, with both claiming to have hit each other’s positions along the frontier.

The latest skirmishes came a day after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip could turn into a regional conflict if Israel pushed on with its offensive in the Palestinian territory.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had struck “two terrorist cells” and a Hezbollah post after an attempted attack from Lebanon.

“In response to two terrorist cells attempting to fire from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, the IDF (military) struck the cells and a Hezbollah observation post,” a military statement said.

It said it had also responded to mortar fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, where no casualties were reported.

Hezbollah said it had simultaneously attacked five Israeli positions along the border.

Hours later it announced a new attack on the Al-Abbad Israeli position without specifying what kind of weapon was used.

Israel’s military said in a new statement that its fighter jets struck “terror targets” of Hezbollah, accompanied by tank and artillery fire.

“The Hezbollah targets struck include terror infrastructure, rocket storage sites and military compounds,” it said.

Hezbollah chief blames US

In his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war broke out four weeks ago, Nasrallah warned Friday that “all options” were open for an expansion of the conflict to Lebanon as he blamed the United States for the war in Gaza.

“America is entirely responsible for the ongoing war on Gaza and its people, and Israel is simply a tool of execution,” Nasrallah said in a televised broadcast, calling the conflict “decisive”.

“Whoever wants to prevent a regional war – and this is addressed to the Americans – must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza,” he said.

Israel fires missile at Hamas leader’s house

An Israeli drone fired a missile at the Gaza house of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh who is currently outside the enclave, Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa Radio reported on Saturday.

It was unclear whether any of his family members were at the house when it was struck.

Haniyeh, Hamas’ political chief, has been outside the Gaza Strip since 2019, residing between Turkey and Qatar.

— Reuters