Saudi Arabia makes fresh arrests in anti-graft crackdown

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.

Powerful blasts rocked Beirut overnight in some of the heaviest Israeli strikes on the capital of Lebanon so far as the Lebanese Health Ministry reports dozens killed and over 150 wounded in bombing attacks across the country in the past 24 hours.

Israel launched several waves of airstrikes on Beirut’s southern neighborhood of Dahiyeh on Thursday.

The regime used powerful bunker-buster bombs in its latest attacks, whose number was more than a dozen.

Several civilian buildings were the main goals of the regime’s latest strikes.

Reports indicate that more bombs were used in the latest attacks compared to the strike that killed the leader of the Hezbollah resistance movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, last Friday.

The attacks also hit the vicinity of Beirut International Airport.

Israel’s strikes also targeted several other locations, including Hezbollah’s media relations office and a warehouse near the Beirut airport.

A source close to Hezbollah said Israel had conducted 11 consecutive strikes in south Beirut on Thursday night.

AFP correspondents in the Lebanese capital heard loud bangs that made car alarms go off and buildings shake.

"Israel struck the southern suburbs 11 consecutive times," the source said on the condition of anonymity.

Giant balls of flame rose from the targeted site with thick smoke billowing and flares shooting out.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said that "more than 10 consecutive strikes have been recorded so far, in one of the strongest raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut since the start of the Israeli war on Lebanon."

The strikes echoed to mountain regions outside Beirut, the NNA said.

Earlier Thursday, the Israeli army issued an “urgent warning” to the residents of the south Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh to evacuate along with maps of the area.

“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the [Israeli army] will operate in the near future,” its official Arabic language spokesperson posted on X.

The death toll from Israeli aerial assaults across Lebanon since early October 2023 has passed the 1,700 mark with nearly 8,770 injured, according to Lebanese government data.

In response, Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets and drones towards Israeli targets.

Hezbollah has been responding to the aggression with numerous retaliatory operations, including with hypersonic ballistic missiles, targeting the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Lebanese resistance movement has vowed to keep up its operations against Israel as long as the Israeli regime continues its Gaza war, which has so far killed more than 41,780 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The qualitative strikes of Hezbollah have so far thwarted any hostile "Israeli" advance into Lebanese territory.

Hezbollah said in a statement that at least 17 Israeli troops have been killed since the regime launched its incursion into southern Lebanon.

Since dawn on Thursday, the Lebanese resistance fighters have been repelling every attempt by the Israeli elite forces to advance on multiple fronts in southern Lebanon, inflicting heavy losses in equipment and personnel.

A Lebanese political analyst recently praised Hezbollah’s operational capabilities, warning that Israeli forces will become "sitting ducks" for the Lebanese resistance group should they attempt a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.