Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Friday, February 16, that he would make Israel pay “in blood” the price for civilians killed in Lebanon this week, ensuring his party's precision missiles reach the southern extremity could reach part of the enemy country. “Our women and our children who were killed (…), the enemy will pay the price for their blood,” said the leader of the Lebanese Islamist movement in a televised speech. He warned that his formation “has enormous precision missile capacity” that can cover Israeli territory “from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat.” Follow our live stream.
A “terrorist attack” in southern Israel. At least two people were killed on Friday after a suspected “terrorist attack” at a small bus stop in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malakhi, a hospital and police said. According to rescuers, six people were injured and taken to two hospitals. A spokeswoman for one of those hospitals, Kaplan Hospital, said two of the injured people brought to the facility died.
Emmanuel Macron rejected an offensive in Rafah. “The recognition of a Palestinian state is not taboo for France,” said Emmanuel Macron for the first time on Friday when he received King Abdullah II of Jordan in Paris. The French president also warned that an Israeli military offensive in Rafah would lead to “an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” and mark a turning point in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.
Arrests of “terrorists”. The Israeli army claimed to have arrested “more than 20 terrorists who took part in the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7,” including “dozens of suspects” who were detained at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes, Gaza. Less than two hours earlier, the Hamas Health Ministry said four patients had died in hospital due to power outages that cut off oxygen supplies after Israeli forces took over hospitals, and said it feared at least nine more deaths.
Israeli raids in Lebanon. Five fighters from Hezbollah and its allied Amal Movement were killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon on the night of Thursday 15 to Friday, the two groups said. These attacks come after deadly violence in the border region, where exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified, raising fears of an escalation. On Thursday, Hezbollah claimed to have fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in response to an Israeli attack that killed 15 people.