Israel strikes Lebanon, identifies latest remains

Israeli jets struck several towns in southern Lebanon on Thursday after urging residents to leave, marking an escalation in their near-daily strikes on the country.Related video above: Hamas says more hostage remains were returnedThe airstrikes came hours after militant group Hezbollah urged the Lebanese government not to enter negotiations with Israel.Israeli Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents in Tayba near the border, Teir Debba located just east of the coastal city of Tyre, and Aita al-Jabal in southern Lebanon, to flee 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) away from residential buildings they are targeting, which they say have been used by Hezbollah. It later issued more warnings for the towns of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Kfar Dounin.The Israeli military said it targeted military infrastructure for Hezbollah in those areas. It accused the group of rebuilding its capabilities almost a year after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire went into effect that ended a monthslong war. While most residents evacuated the threatened areas ahead of the strikes, Lebanon’s health ministry reported one person wounded. »We will not allow Hezbollah to rearm themselves, to recover, build back up its strength to threaten the state of Israel, » Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said at a briefing Thursday.The strikes came as Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and his government met in Beirut to follow up on a plan drafted by the Lebanese military to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups in the country.Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has been critical of Israel’s strikes and ongoing occupation of five hilltop points on Lebanese territory, but has said he is open to negotiations with Israel to end the tensions.Israel says its near-daily strikes have targeted Hezbollah officials and military infrastructure, while the Lebanese government, which has backed disarming Hezbollah, says the strikes have targeted civilians and infrastructure unrelated to the Iran-backed group.The powerful group’s military capabilities were severely damaged in Israel’s intense air campaign over the tiny country in 2024, but Hezbollah has yet to disarm, and its leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, has said that the group will be ready to fight no matter how limited their capabilities might be.Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, which nominally ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war last November. The conflict started after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, prompting Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in return. The low-level exchanges escalated into full-scale war in September 2024.Lebanon’s health ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire took effect. As of Oct. 9, the U.N. human rights office had verified that 107 of those killed were civilians or noncombatants, said spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan.No Israelis have been killed by fire from Lebanon since the ceasefire. Hezbollah has claimed one attack since the agreement took effect.Also Thursday, the U.S. Treasury announced a new set of sanctions that it said target « financial operatives who oversee the movement of funds from Iran » to Hezbollah, including through licensed and unlicensed money exchanges shops that it said « fail to conduct adequate screening on their customers » and allow Hezbollah « to take advantage of Lebanon’s largely cash-based economy to launder illicit money. »Continue reading below for the latest news from the Mideast:Israel identifies latest hostage remains returned by Hamas as those of a Tanzanian studentIsraeli authorities confirmed Thursday that the remains of a hostage returned the previous day from Gaza are of a Tanzanian agricultural student in Israel who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023 in the Hamas-led attack that started the war.The development was the latest step forward under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains were identified as those of Joshua Loitu Mollel and that his family has been notified.Mollel, 21, had arrived at kibbutz Nahal Oz only 19 days before the attack, after finishing agricultural college back home and looking to gain experience in Israel, he could apply in Tanzania. He is survived by two parents and four siblings in Tanzania. »Joshua’s return offers some comfort to a family that has endured unbearable uncertainty for over two years, » the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said in a statement.Bodies still to be returnedThere are now six bodies of hostages that remain in Gaza. The territory’s militants have released 22 bodies of hostages since the ceasefire began last month. Among the six bodies still in Gaza is that of Sudthisak Rinthalak, an agricultural worker from Thailand, the only non-Israeli.Hamas returned 20 living hostages to Israel on Oct. 13. The subsequent exchanges of the dead are the central component of the initial phase of the deal, which requires Hamas to return all hostage remains as quickly as possible.The exchanges have gone ahead even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of breaching other terms of the agreement.Israel has handed over 285 bodies of Palestinians back to Gaza, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which handles the exchanges.Health officials in Gaza have said identifying the remains handed over by Israel is complicated by a lack of DNA testing kits. Israel has not disclosed how many bodies it is holding or where they were recovered, but has been returning 15 each time the remains of an Israeli hostage are returned from Gaza.Hamas has said that recovering bodies is complicated by the widespread devastation in the coastal enclave and has returned one to three bodies every few days. Israel has pushed to speed up the returns and, in certain cases, has said the remains were not those of hostages.Another border concern for IsraelSeparately, Israeli concerns over weapons smuggling with the use of drones along its 200-kilometer (130-mile) border with Egypt prompted the country’s defense minister on Thursday to order that a border area be designated as a closed-off military zone to curb the illegal activity.Israel Katz said troops would also be authorized to fire on smugglers operating in the zone, according to a statement from his office. »Anyone who enters the unauthorized area will be harmed, » said Katz.Katz, on Wednesday, met with top military and security officials who also agreed to work on designating arms smuggling as a terrorist threat so that « security forces deploy appropriate tools to combat the threat. »Gaza stabilization force in the worksU.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan calls for an international stabilization force for Gaza and diplomats are working to define its role, persuade Arab countries to take part, and win wider international support.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the force would need the legitimacy of a U.N. Security Council mandate.The United States said Wednesday that representatives from Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates met with 10 non-permanent U.N. Security Council members about getting support for a U.N. Security Council resolution on Gaza.Also, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Wednesday the bloc is looking to extend the mandates of its two current missions helping the Palestinian Authority train a police force and bolster security procedures as a way to contribute to the stabilization force. Released Israeli hostage alleges sexual abuseA released Israeli hostage said he was stripped naked and beaten by Palestinian militants who held him for two years in Gaza. His testimony makes him the latest of several hostages released from Gaza to report being sexually abused in captivity.Parts of Ron Braslavski’s account was published in the Daily Mail, ahead of the full interview set to air on Israel’s Channel 13 later on Thursday night.In the clips, Braslavski said his captors had starved and sexually abused him and he recounts how he prayed for the abuse to stop. »It was sexual violence and its main purpose was to humiliate me, » he said. « While I was there — every day, every beating — I’d say to myself, ‘I survived another day in hell.' »Braslavski was a guard at the Nova musical festival and was captured by the militants who overran the grounds during the October 2023 attack on southern Israel. He was released last month as part of the ceasefire agreement.The 2023 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel sweeping military offensive has killed more than 68,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts. Weapons cache linked to Hamas found in Vienna by Austria’s intelligence serviceAustria’s domestic intelligence service has uncovered a weapons cache in Vienna that is believed to be linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas for use in « possible terrorist attacks in Europe, » the government said Thursday.A 39-year-old unidentified British citizen allegedly « having close ties to the weapons cache » was arrested in London on Monday, the interior ministry statement said. »According to the current state of the investigation, Israeli or Jewish institutions in Europe were likely to be the targets of these attacks, » it added.The weapons cache and the suspect were part of an internationally coordinated investigation by the country’s Directorate for State Security and Intelligence service, or DSN, « into a global terrorist organization with ties to Hamas. »In the course of the investigations, the ministry said its intelligence service found « suspicion that a group has brought weapons into Austria to use in possible terrorist attacks in Europe. »The weapons cache, which is thought belongs to unspecified foreign operations linked to Hamas, was discovered in a suitcase in a rented storage room in Vienna and contained five handguns and 10 accompanying magazines. »The current case shows once again that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence has an excellent international network and takes consistent action against all forms of extremism, » Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said. « The mission is clear: zero tolerance for terrorists. »Britain’s National Crime Agency confirmed on Thursday that the 39-year-old was arrested in central London on Monday by specialist officers from the NCA’s National Extradition Unit. He is being held in custody until his next appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday.Pope Leo meets Palestinian President Abbas, discuss urgent need for Gaza aid, two-state solutionPope Leo XIV met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time on Thursday, and the two men discussed the urgent need to provide assistance to civilians in Gaza and to pursue a two-state solution to end the conflict in the region.The meeting, which lasted about an hour and was described as « cordial » in a brief Vatican statement, comes nearly a month after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect in the Gaza Strip.The pope and Abbas had not met in person previously. They had spoken over the phone in July to talk about developments in the conflict in Gaza and violence in the West Bank. »During the cordial talks, it was recognized that there is an urgent need to provide assistance to the civilian population in Gaza and to end the conflict by pursuing a two-State solution, » the Holy See said.In September, Pope Leo and his top diplomats told Israel’s president that a two-state solution was the « only way out of the war, » as the Vatican called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.Abbas was visiting the Vatican to mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of the « Comprehensive Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Palestine. »He arrived in Rome on Wednesday afternoon, and visited the Basilica of St. Mary Major to pay his respects to the late Pope Francis’ tomb.Over the years, Abbas had met the late Pope Francis several times, maintaining frequent phone contacts after Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s strikes on Gaza.Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

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