Displaying items by tag: airstrikes

Israel has launched a series of airstrikes and naval operations in Syria, targeting military assets and creating a buffer zone near the Golan Heights. Defence minister Israel Katz stated the actions aim to establish a ‘sterile defence zone’ to prevent terrorist activities. Israeli strikes reportedly destroyed Syria’s naval fleet, military warehouses, air-defense facilities, and weaponry near Damascus. There were probably as many as 250 strikes, with video evidence of naval wreckage in Latakia. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed significant damage to Syria’s military infrastructure. Israel claims its operations are temporary and limited to precluding advanced weaponry from extremist groups. However, several nations have condemned the strikes as violations of international law. The UN criticised the buffer zone seizure as a breach of the 1974 disengagement agreement, despite Israel’s assurances of its defensive intent.

At least fifty Palestinians have been killed and many wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The strikes targeted areas in south and central Gaza, including the humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi and a UN-run school in a refugee camp. The Israeli military (IDF) claimed the strikes targeted Hamas fighters, and it accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. It also says that half of Hamas’s military leaders and approximately 14,000 ‘terrorists’ have been killed in the last nine months. Since October, over 38,000 people have died in Gaza, with 14,680 identified as children, women, and elderly. The violence has resulted in significant civilian suffering and displacement, with both sides continuing hostilities. In a recent BBC interview, a mother in Gaza has described how her adult son with Down’s Syndrome died after being attacked by an IDF dog: see

Hundreds of rockets were fired from Lebanon towards northern Israel on 12 June, hours after an Israeli airstrike which killed a senior Hezbollah commander. The Israeli military reported detecting about 215 projectiles, with some intercepted and several causing fires. The death of the commander, Hajj Abu Taleb, has intensified clashes along the border, with Hezbollah using more advanced weaponry and Israeli airstrikes penetrating deeper into Lebanon. Over 400 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, including more than seventy civilians. On the Israeli side, fifteen soldiers and ten civilians have died since the conflict began. Meanwhile, Antony Blinken stated that mediators are working to finalise a cease-fire deal after Hamas proposed amendments to a US-backed proposal which aims to ensure a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. The proposal, announced by Joe Biden, includes these provisions, but Hamas remains sceptical about Israel’s commitment to implementing the terms.

On 18 January Pakistan launched retaliatory airstrikes against alleged ‘terrorist hideouts’ in Iran, killing seven. This followed Iran's strikes on Pakistani soil on the 16th, resulting in the deaths of two children, which targeted Jaish al-Adl, an ethnic Baloch Sunni group which has previously launched attacks inside Iran. Pakistan stated that its actions were based on credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities and emphasised its respect for Iran's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The airstrikes have heightened tensions in the region, adding to the broader Middle East crisis. Earlier in the week, Iran also conducted strikes in Iraq and Syria, targeting the alleged perpetrators of the bomb attack in Kerman which claimed 84 lives. China, a key ally of both countries, called for restraint and de-escalation in the situation. Pakistan's action is seen as an attempt to restore deterrence amid the volatile dynamics in the region.

The military junta in Myanmar has carried out its deadliest attack yet on civilians in rebel-held areas. It bombed a meeting of community leaders, killing about 100, including 30 children. The junta has increasingly used airstrikes to crush resistance since it seized power in 2021, often targeting schools and clinics run by the opposition. Myanmar’s military is losing against armed ground battles that have sprung up since the coup, so they are increasingly relying on airstrikes, targeting the most vulnerable. The whole country is up in arms, and every single community is involved in some kind of armed resistance against this military dictatorship. So they are trying to terrorise the civilian populations into submission with mass arrests, torturing prisoners, beheading civilians, and media repression. Graphic images posted online and verified by Al Jazeera and other media show burning limbs at the recent bomb scene. The UN warns of worsening human rights violations across Myanmar.

The worst fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in seven years intensified this week, as Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hamas offices in Gaza City and militants in Gaza fired rockets at the metropolis of Tel Aviv, the southern city of Ashkelon and Israel’s main airport.

In Gaza, at least 67 Palestinians, including 15 children, had been killed by Tuesday night, and 203 others were wounded, according to health officials. In Israel, five people were killed in strikes on Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Lod, and at least 100 were wounded, according to medical officials.

Away from the military conflict, a wave of civil unrest spread across Arab neighbourhoods as Palestinian citizens of Israel expressed fury at the killings in Gaza and longstanding complaints of discrimination inside Israel itself.

Towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations have been struck by some of the worst communal violence that Israel has seen in years. Live footage was broadcast of far-right Israelis dragging a man they thought was an Arab from his car and beating him until he lay on the ground motionless and bloodied. Footage of the attack in Bat Yam, a Tel Aviv suburb, was broadcast live on TV.  Those in the crowd justified the attack by saying the man was an Arab who had tried to ram the far-right nationalists, but the footage showed a motorist trying to avoid the demonstration.

At the same time, Arab protesters also took to the streets, triggering confrontations with Jews. They burnt cars and assaulted Jewish residents of mixed cities, according to police.

This all comes at a time when cities with mixed populations have been positive examples of co-existence but are now being destabilised by a small but destructive minority.  As trust is damaged and moderate voices increasingly lost the fear is that violence will only continue to escalate.

The mayor of Lod, a city with both Jewish and Arab residents, warned that “civil war” was breaking out after Arab mourners clashed with police. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called on both Jews and Arabs to cease attacks on each other: “It doesn’t matter to me that your blood is boiling. You can’t take the law in your hands,” he said.

The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered by days of escalating clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem.

The site is revered by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Hamas launched rockets when its ultimatum went unheeded.

Palestinian anger had already been stoked by weeks of rising tension in East Jerusalem, inflamed by a series of confrontations with police since the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in mid-April.

It was further fuelled by the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers and Israel's annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, known as Jerusalem Day.

The UN have stepped in amid concerns that the region is heading towards a full-scale war.  The UN envoy Tor Wennesland said leaders on all sides “have to take the responsibility of de-escalation” after a day of ferocious confrontations and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promising to intensify attacks on Gaza. “The cost of war in Gaza is devastating and is being paid by ordinary people,” said Wennesland. “Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full-scale war,” he warned.

Sources / More info: New York Times  |  BBC News

Read more insight into the situation surrounding Israel from Well Versed World.

Let’s Pray:

Pray for peace and that the moderate voices calling for it will be heard above the explosions and gunfire.
Pray for the victims and their families that they may be comforted in their loss.
Pray for the political leaders in the region, that they will show wisdom in seeking an end to the violence and not seek political gain out of the situation.
Pray for all those living in fear that they may know the peace of God in these difficult times.
Pray for restoration of communities being torn apart by civil unrest and communal violence.

On 27 March security forces killed over fifty protesters who defied a warning that they could be shot ‘in the head and back’ if they came out while the country's generals celebrated Armed Forces Day. ‘Today is a day of shame for the armed forces,’ said Dr Sasa, a spokesman for the anti-junta group of deposed lawmakers. Local media reported that around 3,000 people from Karen state have left the country and crossed the border into Thailand to escape the violence. Airstrikes that sent villagers fleeing into the jungle show the Myanmar situation is ‘much worse’, a humanitarian worker said. At least 114 people were killed by security forces on 29 March, including a five-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. Despite the bloodshed, protesters returned to the streets. Citizens are living amid increasing violence. People are being beaten and shot; now they face multiple airstrikes. Myanmar has not had airstrikes there for over twenty years.

The UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet says that those responsible for airstrikes targeting Syrian civilians could be charged with war crimes, calling it ‘a failure of leadership by the world's most powerful nations’. Since late April 400,000 have been displaced and over 730 civilians killed by Syrian and Russian attacks on militant-held Idlib where three million still live. The airstrikes on schools, hospitals, markets and bakeries killed over 103 civilians in just ten days, including 26 schoolchildren killed in their classroom seats. Ms Bachelet added, ‘These are civilian objects, and it seems highly unlikely, given the persistent pattern of such attacks, that they are all being hit by accident. There is an international indifference to the rising civilian death toll caused by a succession of airstrikes.` Both the Syrians and Russians deny targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.