Israel launches apparent rare strike on central Beirut amid further attacks across Lebanon and Yemen

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

A Palestinian militant group said three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli attack on central Beirut early on Monday, in what would be the first time Israel’s military had struck the centre of Lebanon’s capital city since 2006, as it expanded hostilities against Iran’s regional allies with further attacks across Lebanon and Yemen.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group taking part in the fight against Israel, said three senior figures were killed in the Beirut attack, with initial footage from the scene showing two storeys of an apartment building completely blown out, and onlookers running towards the building.
...
On Sunday, Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, fuelling fears of a slide towards a devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts.

The attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen involved dozens of Israeli planes and appears to have targeted fuel facilities, power plants and docks at the Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports. It one of the biggest such operations yet seen in the near year-long crisis in the region.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/30/lebanon-beirut-israel-strikes-yemen-hezbollah-latest-news

---

This is an expansion of targets - not just the area of Beirut where Hezbollah dominates. And how Israeli planes got to Yemen would be interesting to know - fly down the middle of the Red Sea so that neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia feels their airspace has been significantly intruded upon, or was there some agreement with Saudi Arabia to turn a blind eye? SA would be happy with attacks on Houthi targets, after all.

[CincyDem]

1. Re:Yemen access...exit Israel at Eilat and a willing blind eye from the Kingdom.

Saudi has been actively fighting in Yemen since 2015. I’m sure they were very appreciative. Enemy of my enemy thing and all that.

What’s interesting to me about this move is that it widens the war. Not the Israel Hamas was that’s been in the news since 10/7 but the Saudi Iran war that been brewing by proxy over the past 10 years.

Instead of thinking about 10/7 as Israel’s 9/11, starting a war in retaliation to a terrorist attack…maybe it’s their Pearl Harbor, drawing them into an existing war a la WWII.

Who would have thought we’d see a day where Israel and Saudi might be allies.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I can't say I can toast the attack on the port

Attack "fuel facilities, power plants and docks" and you just increase the risk of famine in Yemen. There was a reason why the US did not go after such easy, showy targets:

The international group struck 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen in response to the Houthis' attacks against international and commercial shipping, as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea. "These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners," the communique said.

The strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis' deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems and radars, officials said.

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3665898/us-uk-launch-strikes-against-houthi-targets-in-yemen-to-protect-red-sea-shipping/

[CincyDem]

3. I disagree that the port bombing "just" increases the risk of famine in Yemen.

Yes - the risk of famine is some increment higher today than it was yesterday. Beyond that, the risk of further attacks on shipping vessels is lower, the ability of the Houthi to move troops, munitions, and launching sites around the country is lower, and the efficiency of their communications networks are likely lower.

No - I don’t think the port bombing just increases the risk of famine…that view misses the military strategic value of these targets.

[AloeVera]

9. Military strategic value?

For God's sake, 80% of food and other aid was getting in through that particular port, now gone. It is not "some increment". It is certain starvation.

Israel would know this and went ahead anyway.

That's the only "perspective" that should matter.

[Beastly Boy]

12. Yemen has been on the edge of certain starvation for five years...

... and for five years you stayed silent?

More than 90,000 children died... and you stayed silent?

Over 130 children dying every day... and you stay silent?

Houthi rebels routinely confiscating humanitarian supplies, and you stay silent?

At least 17 million people suffering food insecurity for years... and you stayed silent all this time?

And today of all days you are suddenly horrified by the fact that 80% of all humanitarian supplies go through the hands of Iran's proxies in Yemen, and their control of the supplies could have been temporarily disabled?

...What changed all of a sudden?

Hmmm....

[PufPuf23]

14. Why have you never mentioned Yemen? Works both ways.

People mention Israel because Israel is a major ally to the USA and the largest recipient of foreign aid by far and has been for many years, Many Americans are Jewish or otherwise from the Middle East or have immediate family or friends that are Jewish or otherwise from the Middle East.

There is a major and expanding war in progress.

If one reads the comments in the English language press (Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, etc.) the comments are mostly hostile to Biden/Harris and the Democratic Party. Cringeworthy.

Look here for instance: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-821158

What is your opinion of the comments and Biden/Harris policy?

[Beastly Boy]

16. Because I am not a pearl clutcher by nature.

I find it hypocritical to use other people's miseries to indulge in my own self-righteousness.Talk does nothing. Action is best achieved when one doesn't talk, and I act in the privacy of my own home, to the extent I can.

The same principle applies to the comments you raised in your post. There are millions of Israelis who resent the comments you mentioned as much as I do. There are enough of them to turn the Israeli politics around. They need support from America's left in order to achieve electoral victory, which is only four Knesset seats away. Yet, all I hear from America's left is Israel this and Israel that.

What do you think the reaction from Israel's undecided voters to this open hostility is going to be? Anecdotal evidence suggests that they resent the shit out of this stance.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

15. All very good questions.

Seems kind of hypocritical to all of a sudden be concerned about the food situation now but not earlier.

[Beastly Boy]

17. Also, to be laser focused on blaming Israel for the Gaza short-lived food crisis while

ignoring the crisis of far greater proportions in Yemen at the same time.

[Beastly Boy]

4. I don't see how any action towards unblocking the Red Sea

for grain deliveries to Yemen, among many other things, would increase the risk of famine in Yemen.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Bombing a port does not "unblock" it

I had missed that they did this in July too:

The Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port on the evening of July 20, 2024, were an apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians that could have a long-term impact on millions of Yemenis who rely on the port for food and humanitarian aid, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Israeli strikes came a day after a Houthi drone strike, which may amount to a war crime, on a Tel Aviv residential neighborhood that killed one civilian and wounded four others. The Israeli airstrikes, which killed at least six civilians and reportedly injured at least 80 others, hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two shipping cranes in Hodeidah port in northwest Yemen, as well as a power plant in Hodeidah’s Salif district. The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes.

“The Israeli attacks on Hodeidah in response to the Houthis’ strike on Tel Aviv could have a lasting impact on millions of Yemenis in Houthi-controlled territories,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Yemenis are already enduring widespread hunger after a decade-long conflict. These attacks will only exacerbate their suffering."
...
The Hodeidah port is critical for delivering food and other necessities to the Yemeni population, who depend on imports. About 70 percent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 percent of its humanitarian assistance passes through Hodeidah port, which UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Auke Lootsma said was “absolutely crucial to commercial and humanitarian activities.” Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, described the port as a “lifeline for millions of people” that should be “open and operating.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/19/yemen-israeli-port-attack-possible-war-crime

[Beastly Boy]

6. Having terrorists in control of the port does not unblock it either.

But I was talking about the Red Sea, not the port.

While the Houthies control the Gulf of Aden, there is no possibility for deliveries anywhere in Yemen, not to mention Ethiopia and Eritrea. Should they be dislodged from the port, regardless of who does it or how, the port can be rebuilt in less time than it takes to dislodge the terrorists. Whoever controls the port, controls deliveries of food to all of Yemen. At this time, it's the terrorists, which doesn't make the prospects of famine in Ethiopia particularly encouraging for any Ethiopian except the terrorists.

It's Hamas 2.0, armed with ship-destroying missiles.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. See the link I gave - the port, right now, imports much of the food to northern Yemen (nt)

[Beastly Boy]

8. The (Houthi-controlled) port imports, but does it distribute?

Ships are not coming to the port since the attack, but were they coming before the attack?

And by chance, can you tell me who started the civil war that lead to five years of food shortages in Yemen in the first place?

Yeah, it's all Israel's fault, and Houthis who control all the food that comes into the port have nothing to do with the ridiculously inflated food prices that ordinary Yemenis cannot afford. They are certainly not complaining about food shortages, or missile shortages, each one of them worth a shipload of food (pun intended).

Speaking of missiles, HRW reports in great detail about oil tankers being blown up and burning for days and a loading crane taken out of commission. Where are their reports on the the number of missiles and drones that got blown up on the port's grounds and how long they were burning? How many Yemeni "civilians" were manning those facilities? HRW is quick to inform us that millions of Yemenis rely on the port for food, but have they all been getting their food from the port? Apparently not, because food shortages continue uninterrupted since five years ago. Doesn't this interest HRW in the least bit?

So let the Houthis remain in control of Yemen's food imports and threaten to blow up any ships crossing the Red Sea until no ship of any kind dares to enter it. I am sure that ordinary Yemenis will be eternally grateful for such outcome.

Hamas 2.0

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Again, read the article. It's not just HRW, it's the UN that said it.

And the US policy, under the Democratic administration, is also to not just blow shit up in the general area of the Houthi - for those humanitarian reasons.

[Beastly Boy]

11. I have read the damn article the first time you posted, and I am not impressed with either HRW or the UN.

Last edited Tue Oct 1, 2024, 11:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Neither says that the port has been disabled in its function to receive supplies, only that the port is being "critical". Neither commented on the large quantities of explosives detonated by IAF strikes on the port, even though evidence shows a number of high yield secondary explosions after the strikes, a tell-tale sign of large quantities of hidden munitions. No apparent attempts were made by any UN or HRW investigators to determine the causes of these explosions. Neither mentions that Article 52 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention classifies strateic oil reserves as a legitimate military target.The two loading cranes are pieces of equipment that are likely to fall into the same category of legitimate military targets.

What they do say is that an apparently only remnant collected at the site by an HRW investigator "bore the markings of... the “small diameter bomb,” a guided, airdropped munition". That's a high precision, low yield munition, and this testimony makes a total mockery of your "just blow shit up in the general area of the Houthi" comment.

Which makes me wonder: have YOU read the article you cited?

[Tarc]

13. So the Houthis reached the "find out" part

After completing the "fuck around" stage.