North Korea balloon trash lands in South Korea president’s compound, security says
(LONDON and SEOUL) — Refuse carried by a North Korean “trash balloon” landed inside the South Korean presidential compound in the capital city of Seoul on Thursday amid rising tensions between the two neighbors.
The South Korean Presidential Security Service “identified trash that blew up in the air and fell in the office compound early this morning,” the service said in a Thursday statement.
“After a safety inspection, the service collected the fallen objects after confirming they do not contain danger or contagiousness,” the service added. “The service is monitoring the situation in cooperation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
This is the second time one of North Korea’s trash balloons fell inside the South Korean Presidential Office Compound.
Cross-border balloons have been one element of the recent deterioration in inter-Korean relations, with the period of diplomatic thaw from 2017 giving way to new tensions since the election of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the spring of 2022.
The balloons have been found carrying household waste items including paper, vinyl and plastic bottles, according to the South Korean military. Some trash balloons carried manure.
Several fires have also been reported in metropolitan areas attributed to “heat timers” attached to the balloons.
North Korea launched a total of 5,500 trash balloons at South Korea on 22 occasions from May 28 to Sept. 23 this year, Lee Sung-joon — a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff — said last month.
Seoul estimated that North Korea spent 550 million won — around $411,600 — to produce the balloons, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Lee said in September after 120 balloons were launched that Seoul would consider military action to down them if necessary. “If North Korea’s continued trash balloons are judged to pose a serious threat to the safety of our citizens or to have crossed the line, the military will take stern military action,” he said.
South Korean civic groups have also launched balloons across the border, much to Pyongyang’s chagrin.
Such balloons often carry rice, essential medicine and leaflets critical of leader Kim Jong Un’s regime. North Korea has repeatedly protested such action and threatened a response.
The frontier region has been particularly tense this month. On Oct. 15, Seoul said North Korea blew up two border roads and deployed “heavy equipment” for “further operations.”
South Korean troops along the border fired warning shots in response, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The detonations followed a North Korean warning that it intended to permanently seal off border access routes, cutting rail and road connections and reinforcing defensive fortifications.
The explosions came shortly after Kim ordered his artillery forces — traditionally the most potent threat to the capital Seoul, which sits around 35 miles from the frontier — onto full alert, having accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang.
The face-off on the Korean Peninsula may now spread to Ukraine, where Seoul, Kyiv and Washington, D.C. have accused Pyongyang of deploying troops in support of Russia’s invasion.
Yonhap reported that Seoul is now considering sending weapons to Ukraine in response, having so far only provided humanitarian aid.
Yonhap also said South Korea is considering sending military and intelligence personnel to Ukraine to probe North Korean battlefield performance and help with interrogations of captured North Korean fighters.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The Israeli military expanded its Lebanon campaign with hundreds of airstrikes on Monday, as the long-simmering border conflict with Hezbollah threatened to explode into a larger war.
Dozens of Israeli warplanes struck more than 1,300 targets in southern Lebanon on Monday morning, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
At least 492 people were killed and more than 1,600 wounded in the ongoing strikes, among them women, children and medical personnel, the Lebanon Ministry of Public Health said. Of those killed, 35 were children and 58 were women, the ministry said.
Israel also said it launched a targeted strike in Beirut. At least six people were injured in that airstrike on a residential building in Bir al-Abd, a southern suburb of Beirut, according to Lebanese state media.
Hezbollah officials said senior commander Ali Karaki — who Israeli sources confirmed was the target of the Beirut strike — survived the attack.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Israel was changing “the security balance, the balance of power in the North.”
“For those who have not yet understood, I want to clarify Israel’s policy — we do not wait for a threat, we anticipate it,” Netanyahu said. “Everywhere, in every arena, at any time. We eliminate senior officials, eliminate terrorists, eliminate missiles — and our hands are bent.”
“Whoever tries to hurt us, we hurt him even more,” he added.
The attacks coincided with a warning by from IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari of more planned Israeli strikes against Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure” in the border region and elsewhere.
Hagari said civilians in Lebanese villages used by Hezbollah for military purposes should “immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety.”
Video and photos showed bumper-to-bumper traffic as people tried to flee southern cities.
Following the intense strikes in the south of the country on Monday morning, Hagari said the IDF would soon start hitting targets in the eastern Bekaa Valley — another Hezbollah stronghold. Hagari claimed that every house by Israeli munitions contained “rockets, missiles, UAVs that are intended to kill Israeli civilians.”
Hezbollah returned fire across the border with dozens of projectiles, the IDF said, with alarms sounding across the region. Some munitions were intercepted and some fell in open areas, the force wrote on social media.
There were about 250 launches from Lebanon into Israel on Monday, according to Israeli Emergency Officials. Hagari said there had been about 700 launches in the last week.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service reported at least one man injured by shrapnel in the Lower Galilee area and another lightly hurt while making his way to a shelter.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a social media post that Israel “will act with full force” to change the current situation in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Katz said, “has taken the people of Lebanon hostage, placing missiles and weapons in their homes and villages to threaten Israel’s civilians.”
“This is a clear war crime,” Katz said. “We will not accept this reality.”
“The people of Lebanon must evacuate any home turned into a Hezbollah outpost to avoid harm,” Katz continued. “We will not stop until the threat is removed from Israel’s citizens and the residents of the north return safely to their homes.”
Thousands of Lebanese cell phone users received a text message from the IDF on Monday, warning: “If you are in a building where Hezbollah weapons are located, stay away from the village until further notice.” Similar messages were issued over Lebanese radio.
The fresh Israeli warnings come after a weekend of intense cross-border fire, with rockets, missiles and drones launched into Israel by Hezbollah met by Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon.
Fighting between the IDF and Hezbollah has been constant since Oct. 8, when the Iranian-backed militant group began attacks into Israel in protest of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas. Hezbollah has said it will continue its attacks until Israeli forces withdraw from the Palestinian territory.
Tens of thousands of Israelis fled border regions under Hezbollah fire since the fighting began. Their return is a priority for Netanyahu and his government.
“We will take whatever action is necessary to restore security and to bring our people safe back to their homes,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.
Israeli leaders are also demanding that Hezbollah withdraw beyond the Litani River — some 18 miles north of the Israeli border — as stipulated in a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution that sought to end the last major cross-border war.
“If the world does not withdraw Hezbollah north of Litani in accordance with Resolution 1701 — Israel will do so,” Katz said on Sunday.
The conflict intensified last week with Israel’s detonation of Hezbollah communication devices in Lebanon and Syria, which Nasrallah described as an “unprecedented blow” for the group.
Two consecutive days of explosions — which killed at least 37 people and wounded 2,931, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad — were followed by the killing of Hezbollah operations chief Ibrahim Aqil and 14 other members in a Beirut airstrike.
The bombing in the Hezbollah-aligned Dahiya suburb killed at least 45 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The dead included at least three children — aged 4, 6 and 10 — and seven women, the ministry said. Dozens more people were wounded.
Hezbollah leaders said they would continue their operations despite last week’s setbacks.
Deputy Secretary General Naim Qasem spoke at Aqil’s funeral in Beirut on Sunday, telling hundreds of mourners that the conflict has now entered “a new phase” which he called an “open-ended battle of reckoning”.
“Threats won’t stop us, and we don’t fear the most dangerous possibilities,” he continued. “We are ready to face all military scenarios.”
Israeli communities in the north of the country are braced for further escalation. The IDF issued new security guidance on Sunday closing schools and beaches in the region, while the Rambam Hospital in Haifa transferred patients to an underground facility.
This weekend, the State Department reissued its level 4 “do not travel” warning for Lebanon, noting “recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut.”
The Department’s July warning for American citizens to “depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available” is unchanged. “At this time, commercial flights are available, but at reduced capacity,” the advisory said.
“If the security situation worsens, commercial options to depart may become unavailable.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself and stressed the importance of achieving a diplomatic solution to return citizens to their homes in the north” in a Sunday phone call with Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant, per a Pentagon readout.
Austin also “emphasized his concern for the safety and security of U.S. citizens in the region,” the Pentagon said.
ABC News’ Dana Savir, Ghazi Balkiz, Joe Simonetti and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As Israel laid the groundwork for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon, the Biden administration on Wednesday was urging diplomacy to resolve the country’s long-simmering conflict with Hezbollah — but growing increasingly resigned to full-blown warfare on a second front in the Middle East, according to multiple U.S. officials.
Two officials told ABC News that the administration has floated at least one draft proposal aimed at temporarily halting the conflict, but at this point Israel has signaled it intends to move forward with battle plans aimed at ending months of tit-for-tat exchanges with Hezbollah across its northern border by decimating the militant group.
“I cannot detail everything we are doing, but I can tell you one thing: we are determined to return our residents in the north safely to their homes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, referring to Israelis who have been displaced since Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
One senior U.S. official said that Hezbollah’s firing of a ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad near Tel Aviv only intensified the Israeli government’s resolve, even though Israeli forces were able to successfully intercept the missile.
The U.S. also has little leverage over Hezbollah, so it’s unclear whether the group would abide by any such agreement to pause the fighting. The administration could potentially rely on partners with direct ties to Hezbollah to contain the group, but all of its efforts to halt its attacks on Israel over the last year have been unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, senior officials say they are still pursuing “concrete options” for de-escalation, and Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday that Israeli leadership remained “open-minded.”
Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Wednesday that it didn’t appear an Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon was in the offing, potentially allowing time for negotiations make headway.
“Without characterizing Israeli operations and letting them speak to them for themselves, it doesn’t look like anything is imminent,” she said.
The Biden administration is also fervently focused on keeping Iran — a chief military and financial supporter of Hezbollah — on the sidelines through indirect diplomacy.
“We also have to coordinate and work together to deter destabilizing activities by Iran. I urge all of us to use the leverage that we have to press Iran to stop fueling escalation,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a meeting with Arab leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday.
But Israel’s military actions in Lebanon over the course of the last week have put the schism between Israel and the U.S. on full display.
When Israel has struck Hezbollah targets in the past, it has typically given the U.S. advanced notice. However, Biden administration officials say they did not receive any warning before hundreds of communication devices distributed to the groups’ members exploded in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
While Israel has messaged its intention to conduct a ground incursion into Lebanon, it has not shared detailed plans with the U.S. — a dynamic that echoes the early days of the country’s military campaign in Gaza.
The lack of transparency has heightened concerns for Americans in the region. The State Department estimates that over 80,000 U.S. citizens live in Lebanon, but it’s unclear how many heeded the department’s July advisory to leave the country.
In a message to Americans still in Lebanon sent on Wednesday, State Department officials said they would hold a call on the security situation in the country on Friday and urged U.S. nationals to depart “while commercial options still remain available.”
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.
(LONDON and MOSCOW) — Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it downed 144 Ukrainian drones during a major overnight attack over nine regions in the west of the country, including the Moscow area.
The ministry described the operation as “a terrorist attack using unmanned aerial vehicles.” It reported 72 drones downed over the Bryansk region, 14 over Kursk, 13 over Tula, eight over Belgorod, seven over Kaluga, five over Voronezh, four over Lipetsk and one over Oryol.
At least 20 drones flew over Moscow, according to the defense ministry.
Moscow regional Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram that one 46-year-old woman died in Ramenskoye in the southeast of the city when a drone hit a residential building — the first time a Moscow resident has been killed in a Ukrainian drone attack.
Three others were injured in Ramenskoye and hospitalized. Another 43 people were taken to temporary accommodation centers. Three buildings in the town were hit, with 54 apartments damaged.
Operations at three of the capital’s four airports were disrupted during the attack. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said fragments of one downed drone fell on the runway at Zhukovsky International Airport southeast of the capital. Emergency crews were deployed to deal with “the consequences” of the incident, Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.
The mayor said that drone fragments also fell on a home in the town of Troitsk southwest of the capital, causing no casualties.
Ukrainian officials have not commented on the attack. Kyiv generally does not confirm or deny responsibility for strikes within Russian borders.
Russia also continued its long-range attacks on Ukraine into Tuesday morning. Ukraine’s air force reported one Iskander-M ballistic missile, one Kh-31P anti-radar missile and 48 Shahed attack drones fired into the country overnight.
Thirty-eight of the drones were shot down, three left Ukrainian airspace and three more were lost over Ukrainian territory, likely due to electronic warfare measures, the air force said.
Air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv on Tuesday morning, with the air force warning residents of a possible attack drone strike. Air raid alerts were active in 13 regions of the country.