Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire across the Lebanon border amid concerns over the spillover from the Gaza war. Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group has fired rockets at Israel, and its arch-foe claims it struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation. The Israeli military said that approximately 40 launches from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel were identified, with no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Hezbollah said it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a preliminary response to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday. Tensions have been especially high since Arouri was killed by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hamas' Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European Union's senior diplomat Josep Borrell have both begun a new diplomatic push to stop the spillover from the three-month-old Gaza war into Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Red Sea shipping lanes. Israel and Hezbollah often trade fire across the Lebanese border, the West Bank is seething with emotion, and the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen seem determined to continue attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes until Israel stops bombarding Gaza.
Blinken was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. During two hours of talks in Istanbul, Blinken discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza with Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and held talks with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Turkey, unlike most of its NATO allies, does not class Hamas as a terrorist organization, has offered to mediate in the Gaza conflict.
Israel's onslaught began after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel on October 7, with 1,200 people killed and 240 taken hostage. The offensive, aimed at wiping out the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, has so far killed 22,722 people and devastated the densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people. The traumatised residents of Gaza, most of whose population has been displaced by the bombardment, are facing a devastating humanitarian crisis, with food, medicine, and fuel supplies running low.
