Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, mishandled adoptions in South Korea, and alleged Iranian interference in the U.S. presidential election.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, mishandled adoptions in South Korea, and alleged Iranian interference in the U.S. presidential election.
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‘An Act of War’
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel in a public address on Thursday of “willfully” aiming to kill thousands of people across Lebanon via remote attacks on the group’s electronic devices. At least 37 people were killed and around 3,000 others wounded after hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday and hundreds more of the group’s walkie-talkies exploded on Wednesday.
The attacks were “a major assault on Lebanon, its security and sovereignty, a war crime—an act of war,” Nasrallah said. He accused Israel of transgressing “all boundaries and red lines” and vowed to exact “a severe reckoning and just retribution,” though he did not specify what that might entail. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks, but officials widely believe that the country’s military and external intelligence agency, Mossad, carried them out. The Lebanese army said on Thursday that it is still identifying and neutralizing “suspicious” communications devices across the country.
Israeli and Hezbollah forces also launched a new round of tit-for-tat strikes across their embattled border on Thursday. Israel flew warplanes over Beirut right as Nasrallah delivered his speech and bombed suspected militant targets across southern Lebanon, including an alleged Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the Lebanese town of Khiam. In response, Hezbollah attacked what it said were military targets in Israel’s north. At least two Israeli soldiers were killed in the strikes.
As fears of an all-out war rise, foreign leaders and officials have called on both sides to exercise restraint, with some denouncing Israel’s recent actions. On Wednesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Riyadh will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel before the “establishment of a Palestinian state” with East Jerusalem as its capital. Mohammed bin Salman was the first Saudi leader to publicly discuss opening ties with Israel after Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco signed similar agreements with Israel in 2020. But the war in Gaza and recent actions in Lebanon appear to have hardened his position.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to take a firm stand against Israel’s “technological war” when the body convenes in New York on Friday. The U.N. General Assembly voted 124-14 (with 43 abstentions) on Wednesday in favor of a Palestinian resolution calling for Israel to end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within a year. Unlike a U.N. Security Council resolution, though, the General Assembly’s vote is not legally binding.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin postponed a trip to the region, planned for early next week, due to escalated fighting along the border, two Israeli officials told Axios, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged for all parties to show restraint.
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel’s chief of the general staff, had “completed approval of plans for the northern arena”—one day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said a “new era” in Israel’s war effort was just beginning.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Adoption cover-up. An estimated 200,000 children have been sent by the South Korean government, along with Western countries and private adoption agencies, to parents overseas since the 1950s. Some of those children, however, were adopted despite being procured by questionable or even illegal means, according to an Associated Press and PBS Frontline investigation published on Thursday.
Based on dozens of interviews with adoptees who ended up in the United States, Australia, and six European countries, journalists discovered that adoption paperwork was fabricated to hide how the children were supplied. The report found that some minors were kidnapped off the streets, while others were taken as newborns, with officials telling the parents that their children were dead or very sick. Children up for adoption who died, became too sick to travel, or were discovered by their biological families were often replaced with other children, and false identification was used to hide the switch.
Hundreds of adoptees have submitted cases to South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate if their adoptions were mishandled. South Korean government officials and private adoption agencies declined to comment.
Election interference. Iranian hackers sent stolen information from former U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign to the then-reelection campaign of U.S. President Joe Biden over the summer, U.S. intelligence agencies announced on Wednesday. Emails with the stolen, nonpublic material were sent to people involved in Biden’s campaign, and similar material was given to U.S. media outlets in an effort to sway the presidential election in November, the agencies said. Tehran denied any foreign interference.
Wednesday’s accusations follow a Microsoft report released last month warning that Iranian-backed hackers used spear-fishing attacks in June to target a high-ranking official working for a U.S. presidential campaign. U.S. adversaries, including Iran as well as China and Russia, have long sought to influence U.S. elections. But for Washington’s cyberdefense community, “the battle is only just beginning—and is only likely to get more intense as Election Day draws closer,” FP’s Rishi Iyengar reports.
Coerced signature. Former Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González said on Wednesday that he was coerced into signing a letter that effectively recognized his defeat in July’s presidential election against incumbent Nicolás Maduro. The document was meant to be confidential, but Maduro’s chief negotiator, Jorge Rodríguez, publicly presented its contents after a local news outlet published parts of it.
Rodríguez said González signed the letter of his own volition, but González said he was told that the only way he could leave Venezuela was if he signed it. González fled to Spain this month to escape Maduro’s ongoing crackdown against political dissidents. Maduro claims to have won the July election despite election watchdogs and rights groups saying González received the most votes.
Odds and Ends
Earth’s moon is about to have a new friend. Starting Sept. 29 and lasting until late November, an asteroid that scientists have nicknamed a “mini-moon” will enter Earth’s orbit and travel partway around the planet before breaking free of its gravitational pull. With a diameter of just about 10 meters, space aficionados will likely not be able to spot it from the ground. But the mini-moon will certainly be able to see us.
The post Hezbollah Leader Vows ‘Just Retribution’ Against Israel for Device Attacks appeared first on Foreign Policy.
