Israel: Hezbollah missile attack on 9 cities – US forces mobilized

Hezbollah launched a missile attack from Lebanese territory on Israeli cities. Iranian media reported that the Iron Dome did not intercept the rockets in the cities of Nahariya and Kabri, which was not confirmed by Israeli media. Nine towns in the Western Galilee were hit, in the largest Hezbollah attack in months.

International media reported that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, after a phone call with his Israeli counterpart, ordered the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to speed up its deployment to the Middle East. The guided-missile submarine USS Georgia was also asked to pass near the region.

Syria: Five fighters from an organization close to Iran killed in a drone strike

Five fighters from an Iran-backed group were killed in an airstrike in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

According to the NGO, the explosion, for which no party has claimed responsibility so far, took place in the Deir ez-Zor region, where Israeli and American air strikes are frequent and where Iran, which provides military support to the Syrian forces, is present. The regime, especially through the deployment of “advisors”, has been very influential since the outbreak of the war in 2011.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, “Five fighters close to Iran were killed and others were injured, some seriously (…) when a drone targeted the military vehicle they were riding in (…) near the Iraqi-Syrian border.”

In June, three other fighters close to Iran, at least two of them Iraqis, were killed in an airstrike in the same area, according to the same NGO, which is based in Britain and relies on an extensive network of sources in Syria.

Two Reuters sources in the security forces in the area confirmed the attack and its toll. One also spoke of a drone strike, but could not say which country it belonged to. The second source said the fighters were wounded while on duty at a checkpoint.

Parts of Syria’s eastern border with Iraq are controlled by armed groups close to Iran, some of them Iraqi, who also control the other side. The area is now a hub for smuggling, especially weapons and other goods, in both directions.

Also last week, at least 20 people, including 14 civilians, were killed in hostilities between pro-Iran militants and Kurdish forces in Deir Ezzor, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Since the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of bombings in the country, targeting the army and factions close to Iran that fight alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The United States has also targeted organizations in eastern Syria.

The Israeli military rarely comments publicly on its operations in the country on a case-by-case basis, but it has often declared that it will not allow Iran, the Jewish state’s archenemy, to expand its presence and influence in Syria.

The strike came as the region is on high alert for an expected attack by Iran or its allies against Israel in retaliation for the assassination of the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on July 31 in Tehran, in an act attributed to Israeli intelligence services from the Islamic Republic.