Jeddah airport officer held for ‘rude’ sitting position’

The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has confirmed the assassination of its secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in massive Israeli airstrikes targeting residential buildings in southern Beirut on Friday.

“His Eminence, the Master of Resistance, the righteous servant, has joined his Lord and His pleasure as a great martyr — an outstanding, courageous, wise, and insightful leader — joining the ranks of the radiant martyrs of Karbala in the divine journey of faith, following in the footsteps of the prophets and martyr imams,” Hezbollah said in a statement on Saturday afternoon.

“The leadership of Hezbollah vows to the highest, most sacred, and dearest martyr in our journey, filled with sacrifices and martyrs, to continue its struggle against the enemy, supporting Gaza and Palestine, and defending Lebanon and its steadfast, honorable people,” it added.

Since Friday afternoon, Israeli warplanes have conducted over 30 airstrikes, targeting residential buildings in Burj al-Barajneh, Kafaat, Choueifat, Hadath, al-Laylaki, and Mreijeh, with local media reporting upwards of 300 casualties as a result of the aggression.

Footage broadcast by al-Manar television channel from the crowded area of Beirut’s Dahiyeh shows flattened buildings, streets filled with rubble and clouds of smoke and dust above the area.

Martyrs’ Square, Beirut’s central public area, was crowded with exhausted and anxious families sheltering outdoors.

The recent attacks are part of the Israeli regime’s intensified assault on Lebanon, which has become more deadly this week, resulting in over 700 deaths nationwide since Monday.

The new attacks came less than a week after the Tel Aviv regime killed 38 people, including three children and seven women as well as senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in an attack on a residential building in a southern Beirut suburb.

Earlier on Saturday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said the brutal attacks by the “rabid Zionist dog” on Lebanon revealed the shortsightedness and foolish policies of Israeli officials, calling on all Muslims to unite behind Lebanese people and Hezbollah.

“The Zionist criminals need to know that they are far too weak to be able to inflict any significant damage on the solid structure of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. All the resistance forces in the region stand with and support Hezbollah,” the Leader said in a statement on Saturday.

“The Lebanese have not forgotten that there was a time when the soldiers of the occupying regime were advancing toward Beirut, and Hezbollah stopped them, and made Lebanon proud. Today too, by the grace and power of God, Lebanon will make the transgressing, malicious enemy regret its actions,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted. 

Hezbollah has launched a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv for the first time, triggering sirens in the city and elsewhere including Netanya, the Lebanese resistance group says. 

Warning sirens sounded in Israel’s economic capital Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

There were no reports of damage or casualties and the military said there was no change to civil defense instructions for central Israel.

The Israeli military said that for the "first time ever" a missile fired by Hezbollah reached the Tel Aviv area. "It is the first time ever a Hezbollah missile reached Tel Aviv area."

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging deadly fire since early October last year, shortly after the regime launched a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip following a surprise operation by Hamas.

Earlier, Hezbollah targeted the Israeli Ilaniya military base at the northern side of the occupied territories with a salvo of Fadi-1 rockets. 

The base is reportedly affiliated with the 146th Reserve Division of the Israeli military, which is part of the Northern Command.

The group announced in a brief statement that the operation was carried out in defense of Lebanon and its people. 

Hezbollah also said it targeted a military base near Safad twice with salvos of rockets.

The group stated that it targeted “the Dado base near Safad – the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Northern Command – with a total of 90 rockets in defense of Lebanon and its people.”

Hezbollah said in a separate statement that it unleashed a squadron of attack drones on the headquarters of the Israeli army’s Special Naval Task Force at the Alit Base.

The group said the attack on the Alit base, south of the major port city of Haifa, targeted “the locations of [Israeli] officers and soldiers” and achieved direct hits.

The Lebanese resistance movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory attacks as long as the Israeli regime continues its Gaza war, which has so far killed at least 41,467 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Hezbollah officials have repeatedly said they do not want a war with Israel while stressing that they are prepared in case it occurs.

Two Israeli wars waged against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 were met with strong resistance from Hezbollah, resulting in the retreat of the regime in both conflicts.

According to a report, American multinational technology conglomerate Meta is restricting the use of the upside-down red triangle emoji, which has become a broader symbol of Palestinian resistance.

Meta is restricting the emoji on its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, The Intercept reported on Thursday after reviewing internal content moderation materials.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the resistance movement Hamas has regularly released footage of its successful strikes on Israeli military positions with red triangles superimposed above targeted soldiers and armor, the report said.

The use of the red triangle emoji has expanded online since October last year, becoming a widely used icon for people expressing their sentiments in favor of Palestine and against Israel.

Social media users use the emoji in their posts, usernames, and profiles as a badge of solidarity and protest against Israel’s crime against Palestinians.  

The symbol has become so popular that the Israeli military has used it in its own propaganda.

In November, an Israeli military video that warned “Our triangle is stronger than yours, Abu Obeida,” addressing Hamas’s spokesperson, Al Jazeera reported.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has determined that the upside-down triangle emoji is a proxy for support for Hamas, according to internal policy guidelines obtained by The Intercept.

Meta is deleting the triangle that may be followed by further disciplinary action from the company depending on how severely it assesses its use.

According to the policy materials, the ban covers contexts in which Meta decides a “user is clearly posting about the conflict and it is reasonable to read the red triangle as a proxy for Hamas and it is being used to glorify, support or represent Hamas’s violence.”

Israel has killed at least 41,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. In Lebanon, the death toll has risen to more than 1,840 with 8,400 wounded.

The Israeli war machine ignited its genocidal campaign by targeting helpless Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip in October.

It was after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas conducted surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against the Palestinians.