Two top picks for Israel. Hezbollah announced on Saturday, September 21, the death of a second commander in the airstrike launched by Israel on Friday, September 20, on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which left at least 14 dead and 66 wounded. The first commander whose death was confirmed by both sides on Friday was Ibrahim Aqil, “head of Hezbollah’s operations unit, commander of the Radwan unit” according to the Israeli army. The name confirmed on Saturday by Hezbollah is that of Ahmad Mahmoud Wehbé, who led the military operations of the same Al-Radwan unit from the attacks of October 7, 2023 until the beginning of 2024, according to a statement cited by several media outlets including the Lebanese daily The Orient-The Day or the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Follow our live.
Use of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies could constitute war crime, UN warns “International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trapped devices that appear to be harmless objects.”warned UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk before the Security Council on Friday, September 20. The Lebanese Foreign Minister also described “terrorism” the simultaneous explosions of Hezbollah beepers, walkie-talkies and other transmission devices in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, which left at least 37 dead and 2,931 injured.
Israel continues to bomb Gaza. Two strikes killed at least 14 people Friday morning, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense. One of them targeted a house in the Nusseirat camp (center), killing eight, while six people, including children, were killed in the bombing of a building in Gaza City (north), according to this source. More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to the Hamas government’s Health Ministry.
Israel contests request for international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court had requested international arrest warrants in May for the Israeli prime minister and his defense minister, as well as Hamas leaders, on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. On Friday, Israel presented “his official challenge to the jurisdictional competence of the ICC [dans cette affaire] as well as the legality of the prosecutor’s request”wrote the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the X network.