CBS News
Israel and Hezbollah keep up attacks despite U.S. warning against escalation after pagers explode
Beirut, Lebanon — The White House has warned both Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group against “escalation of any kind” following this week’s synchronized pager and walkie talkie explosions targeting Hezbollah members, but overnight, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah has continued firing back.
There were loud explosions and fires ignited by what the Israel Defense Forces said were strikes targeting hundreds of active Hezbollah rocket launchers in Lebanon early Friday.
It appeared to be one of the most extensive Israeli attacks on Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon since the two sides started trading fire 11 months ago, with Hezbollah claiming its rocket attacks on northern Israel as support for its allies Hamas and the Palestinian people.
Hezbollah struck northern Israel again in a counterattack, killing at least two soldiers, according to Israeli officials.
The deadly escalation in violence followed a televised address from a weary-looking Hassan Nasrallah — the leader of Hezbollah — who admitted this week’s pager and walkie talkie explosions had delivered a “severe blow” to the powerful group, which like Hamas has long been designated a terrorist group by Israel and the U.S.
Nasrallah accused Israel of not only violating “all red lines” with the explosions, but of a “declaration of war.”
Israel has not publicly claimed the complex attacks, but CBS News learned that American officials were given a heads-up by Israel about 20 minutes before the operations began in Lebanon Tuesday, though there were no specific details shared about the methods to be used.
For two terrifying days in Lebanon, thousands of low-tech communications devices — many used by Hezbollah members — exploded simultaneously across the country, wounding over 3,000 people and killing at least 37, including children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
In his address, Nasrallah vowed that Israel would not achieve its goal of enabling the return of tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes in northern border towns. Even as he spoke on Thursday, however, sonic booms echoed above Beirut as Israeli fighter jets roared over the city, flexing Israel’s military might.
But as the U.S. warning Thursday indicated, the next moves — be they further retaliation from Hezbollah or ground operations by the IDF against the group — could have major consequences.
“Ultimately, if they [Israel] do invade, they would have to occupy” southern Lebanon, regional analyst Makram Rabah told CBS News. “This would lead to a kind of a slow, depleting war for Israel, and this would, more importantly, legitimize Hezbollah.”
But hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were likely injured by the explosives attacks, which almost certainly left the group’s communications networks in complete disarray. And despite warnings from Israel’s defense chief of “a new phase” in the country’s war with Iran’s so-called proxy groups, and one IDF division already being transferred there from Gaza, there’s also been no major Israeli build-up of forces or hardware along the Lebanon border seen yet.
So, the prospect of all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel — which could potentially put U.S. forces across the Middle East in direct danger — may not be as close as some fear.
contributed to this report.
CBS News
House unanimously votes to boost Secret Service protection for presidential and VP candidates
Washington — The House unanimously approved a bill on Friday that would bolster Secret Service protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates, following the second apparent attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life in two months.
The legislation would require the Secret Service director “to apply the same standards for determining the number of agents required to protect presidents, vice presidents and major presidential and vice presidential candidates,” according to the bill’s summary.
The final vote to pass the legislation was 405 to 0. The vote came as Republicans have voiced concerns about the Secret Service’s protection of Trump after the attempt on his life in Pennsylvania in July and an apparent assassination attempt at his golf course in Florida over the weekend.
The legislation is separate from measures that would approve additional funding for the Secret Service, something Congress is also pursuing as it looks to fund the government before an Oct. 1 deadline. President Biden told reporters this week the Secret Service should receive all the resources it needs. The Biden administration last month asked Congress for special permission to increase spending on Secret Service in the weeks ahead, even if Congress only passes a short-term spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, multiple congressional and administration sources told CBS News.
The House’s Secret Service bill would still need to pass the Senate. The bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of House members from New York and New Jersey, spearheaded by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres. They introduced the legislation after the first Trump assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that wounded Trump and killed one attendee.
“Elections are determined at the ballot box, not by an assassin’s bullet,” Lawler said on the House floor Friday morning. “That these incidents were allowed to occur is a stain on our country. We have endured through a assassinations of political leaders including presidents. It is destructive to our country, it is destructive to our democracy, our constitutional republic, and it undermines the confidence that Americans have in their government and in the electoral process.”
Torres said the difference between an attempted assassination and a completed one on July 13 was “luck,” not the Secret Service.
“Hoping for the best or lucking out is not a policy prescription for protecting a president or presidential candidate,” Torres said.
Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said Republicans are ignoring a simple common denominator of every successful assassination attempt of a U.S. president, as well as multiple attempted assassinations.
“In every single one of these events, the weapon used was a gun,” Nadler said on the House floor. “The fact is that the work of the Secret Service is made infinitely more difficult by our lax gun laws.”
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio claimed Nadler and Democrats are blaming Trump for what happened.
“They cannot help themselves. It’s ridiculous,” Jordan said.
Jordan said the legislation will help both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“That’s what we want in America,” Jordan said.
CBS News
9/20: CBS Morning News – CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Mark Robinson refuses to drop out of North Carolina governor race
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.