January 3, 2024
Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah (click here) said in an address Wednesday that Israel should expect “a response and punishment” a day after the death of senior Hamas leader Saleh Arouri in a suspected Israeli drone strike in a Beirut suburb. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group based in Lebanon, has traded fire with Israel in recent weeks, though the Lebanese government said it was urging Hezbollah to show restraint. “If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon,” Nasrallah said, they “will regret it.” Before Nasrallah’s speech, the Israel Defense Forces said its troops were “prepared for any scenario.”...
To the east, US forces had smashed through militia defences in the marketplace in Midan square while the heavy boom of artillery fire thundered out across the area from the southern side.
The situation on the northern side, closest to the city's vast cemetery, was not immediately clear but the southern and northern exits from the shrine were in the sights of snipers, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.
The shrine -- one of the holiest Shiite pilgrimage sites in the world -- was very close to being sealed off from the rest of the city, the AFP correspondent said....