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[VIDEOS] Hezbollah, resistance force from Lebanon: A decades-long conflict with Israel

Fifth peacekeeper wounded in southern Lebanon, UN says

A UN peacekeeper has been wounded in southern Lebanon after being hit by gunfire, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) has said, the fifth member of the multinational force to be injured in recent days.

In a statement on Saturday, Unifil said the peacekeeper was injured at its headquarters in the southern city of Naquora on Friday night amid "ongoing military activity nearby", though added that it did not know the origin of the fire.

"He underwent surgery at our Naqoura hospital to remove the bullet and is currently stable," it said.

On Friday US President Joe Biden has said he was "absolutely, positively" urging Israel to stop firing at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon following two earlier incidents on Thursday and Friday.

Israeli troops have launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon as part of its escalation against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, with which it has been trading cross-border fire on a near daily basis for the past year.

Israeli forces have urged UN peacekeepers to leave their positions. A spokesperson for Unifil said on Saturday that there had been a "unanimous decision" to stay in the border region.

Separately, Unifil said buildings at a position in the village of Ramyah sustained "significant damage due to explosions from nearby shelling" on Friday night.

"We remind all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and premises, including avoiding combat activities near Unifil positions," the mission said.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged that its troops were responsible for an incident in which two Sri Lankan soldiers, also in Naqoura, were injured.

The IDF said soldiers operating near the base opened fire after identifying a threat and that the incident would be investigated "at the highest levels".

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said it "strongly condemned" the attack.

On Thursday, two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured falling from an observation tower after Israeli tanks fired towards it.

Lt Gen SeĂĄn Clancy, chief of staff of the Irish Defence Forces, has said he does not believe the strike on Thursday was accidental. Some 340 Irish troops are currently operating in Lebanon with Unifil.

"An observer tower with a round from a tank directly into it, which is a very small target, has to be very deliberate," he told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

"So from a military perspective, this is not an accidental act. It's a direct act.

"Whether its indiscipline or directed, either way it is not conscionable or allowable."

The leaders of France, Italy, and Spain have also condemned Israel's actions, saying in a joint statement that they were unjustifiable and should immediately end.

On Saturday Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on villages to the north and south of the capital Beirut had killed nine people.

The IDF also told residents of 23 southern Lebanese villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali river.

Hezbollah continued to fire into Israel, with the IDF saying that about 320 projectiles had been identified and a number of them intercepted.

On Saturday, the IDF announced that the areas around the northern towns of Zar'it, Shomera, Shtula, Netu’a, and Eben Menachem would be closed to civilians from 20:00 local time (18:00 BST).

About 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries are stationed in Lebanon, alongside around 800 civilian staff.

Since 1978, they have patrolled the area between the Litani River and the UN-recognised boundary between Lebanon and Israel, known as the "Blue Line".

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October last year, the day after Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel. The Iran-backed group says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinians and has said it will stop firing if there is a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Over the past three weeks, Israel has dramatically escalated its campaign against Hezbollah, intensifying air strikes against southern Lebanon and southern parts of Beirut, assassinating Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and launching a ground invasion.

Lebanon says more than 2,000 people have been killed, mainly in the recent escalation, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. This week Hezbollah rocket fire has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai national, Israeli authorities say.

BBC
 

Israeli army claims to have captured a Hezbollah member in south Lebanon​


The Israeli army claims it has captured a Hezbollah member in south Lebanon it said was hiding in a tunnel.

It said that Israeli soldiers encircled a building and scanned the tunnel opening where they “found an underground compound about seven meters deep” where the Hezbollah member was said to be found.

The army also claimed that they found weapons and supplies for extended use.

The soldiers in the video were speaking in Arabic as they asked the alleged fighter to come out of the tunnel.

It added that the member was arrested and interrogated before being taken away and “transferred to a detention facility for further investigation inside Israeli territory.”

The army didn’t specify where in south Lebanon the alleged capture took place or when.

Some media reports have suggested that the video shared by the Israeli army is old or has been fabricated. Hezbollah has not commented yet on the Israeli claims.

Al Arabiya English was unable to independently verify the footage or the Israel army’s claims.

 
BouncerGuy said:
Fifth peacekeeper wounded in southern Lebanon, UN says

A UN peacekeeper has been wounded in southern Lebanon after being hit by gunfire, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) has said, the fifth member of the multinational force to be injured in recent days.

In a statement on Saturday, Unifil said the peacekeeper was injured at its headquarters in the southern city of Naquora on Friday night amid "ongoing military activity nearby", though added that it did not know the origin of the fire.

"He underwent surgery at our Naqoura hospital to remove the bullet and is currently stable," it said.

On Friday US President Joe Biden has said he was "absolutely, positively" urging Israel to stop firing at UN peacekeepers in Lebanon following two earlier incidents on Thursday and Friday.

Israeli troops have launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon as part of its escalation against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, with which it has been trading cross-border fire on a near daily basis for the past year.

Israeli forces have urged UN peacekeepers to leave their positions. A spokesperson for Unifil said on Saturday that there had been a "unanimous decision" to stay in the border region.

Separately, Unifil said buildings at a position in the village of Ramyah sustained "significant damage due to explosions from nearby shelling" on Friday night.

"We remind all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and premises, including avoiding combat activities near Unifil positions," the mission said.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged that its troops were responsible for an incident in which two Sri Lankan soldiers, also in Naqoura, were injured.

The IDF said soldiers operating near the base opened fire after identifying a threat and that the incident would be investigated "at the highest levels".

Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said it "strongly condemned" the attack.

On Thursday, two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured falling from an observation tower after Israeli tanks fired towards it.

Lt Gen SeĂĄn Clancy, chief of staff of the Irish Defence Forces, has said he does not believe the strike on Thursday was accidental. Some 340 Irish troops are currently operating in Lebanon with Unifil.

"An observer tower with a round from a tank directly into it, which is a very small target, has to be very deliberate," he told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

"So from a military perspective, this is not an accidental act. It's a direct act.

"Whether its indiscipline or directed, either way it is not conscionable or allowable."

The leaders of France, Italy, and Spain have also condemned Israel's actions, saying in a joint statement that they were unjustifiable and should immediately end.

On Saturday Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on villages to the north and south of the capital Beirut had killed nine people.

The IDF also told residents of 23 southern Lebanese villages to evacuate to areas north of the Awali river.

Hezbollah continued to fire into Israel, with the IDF saying that about 320 projectiles had been identified and a number of them intercepted.

On Saturday, the IDF announced that the areas around the northern towns of Zar'it, Shomera, Shtula, Netu’a, and Eben Menachem would be closed to civilians from 20:00 local time (18:00 BST).

About 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries are stationed in Lebanon, alongside around 800 civilian staff.

Since 1978, they have patrolled the area between the Litani River and the UN-recognised boundary between Lebanon and Israel, known as the "Blue Line".

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October last year, the day after Hamas's deadly attack on southern Israel. The Iran-backed group says it is acting in solidarity with the Palestinians and has said it will stop firing if there is a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Over the past three weeks, Israel has dramatically escalated its campaign against Hezbollah, intensifying air strikes against southern Lebanon and southern parts of Beirut, assassinating Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and launching a ground invasion.

Lebanon says more than 2,000 people have been killed, mainly in the recent escalation, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. This week Hezbollah rocket fire has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai national, Israeli authorities say.

BBC
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UN Peace Keepers did not do a thing about Hezbollah taking over Lebanon and using Lebanese land to attack Israel. :salute
 
FearlessRoar said:
I am talking about Israel's attack on UN peacekeepers
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@offstump

UN says 15 peacekeepers injured by Israeli smoke rounds

More now from the Unifil statement, which has accused Israeli forces of destroying the gates of one of its compounds in southern Lebanon.

The statement says the incident occurred early this morning at a UN position in Ramiya. At approximately 04:30 local time, while peacekeepers were in shelters, two Israeli Merkava tanks "destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered" the facility. Israeli troops then "requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights".

The statement says the tanks left around 45 minutes later after Unifil "protested through our liaison mechanism, saying that IDF presence was putting peacekeepers in danger".

At approximately 06:40 local time, Unifil says, peacekeepers at the same position reported the firing of several rounds 100 meters north, which emitted smoke.

"Fifteen peacekeepers suffered effects, including skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions, after the smoke entered the camp."

"The peacekeepers are receiving treatment," the statement adds.

BBC
 
Hezbollah says its “swarm of drones” targeted Binyamina in northern Israel where at least 67 people are injured.


Al Jazeera
 
Hezbollah drone attack injures more than 60 in one of the bloodiest attacks on Israel since October 7

More than 60 people have been injured, several of them critically, in a drone attack in north-central Israel, according to first responders.

There were no immediate official reports of deaths from the attack, but the high number of injuries – with rescue service United Hatzalah saying it “provided assistance to over 60 wounded people” – makes it one of the bloodiest since the war started last October.

The news comes after Hezbollah said Sunday it had fired a swarm of attack drones on an Israeli infantry training camp in Binyamina, a town north of Tel Aviv that lies some 40 miles from the Lebanese border. The Lebanon-based militant group said the attack was in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon Thursday that killed 22 people and injured 117, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Hezbollah said it had targeted the Golani Brigade, an infantry unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that has been deployed in southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah statement came shortly after the militant group released an audio message from its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on members to “defend your people, your family, your nation, your values and your dignity.”

CNN cannot verify whether the drone struck an IDF training camp, however, the IDF said Sunday that a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) launched from Lebanon had struck near Binyamina. Earlier on Sunday, the IDF said it had intercepted a Lebanon-launched UAV without specifying where. It was not immediately clear whether this was the same incident that led to the injuries.

Israeli air defence systems tend to be very reliable, but on Sunday, there were no reports of alerts in the Binyamina area at the time of the attack, raising questions of how the drone was able to penetrate so deep into the Israeli territory without being spotted.

The drone attack on Sunday comes two days after another attack in which the IDF said two drones were launched from Lebanon. It said it intercepted one of those drones, but did not specify what happened to the other one. In the attack Friday, warning sirens had activated and while a nursing home in the coastal city of Herzliya, central Israel, was damaged, no casualties were no reported.


 

Hezbollah drone attack kills four Israeli soldiers; Israeli attack in Gaza kills 20​


A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in central Israel killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It later said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones.

Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air-defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles. Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated.

Israel launched its ground operation in Lebanon earlier this month with the goal of weakening Hezbollah and pushing the militant group away from the border to allow thousands of displaced Israelis to return to their homes.

Inside Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people including children at a school Sunday night, according to two local hospitals. The school in Nuseirat was sheltering some of the many Palestinians displaced by the war.

Meanwhile, explosions hit early Monday outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing three people and injuring about 50 others, the hospital said. Tents caught fire, and residents of the Central Gaza community carried the injured into the hospital.

Hezbollah’s deadly strike in Israel came the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to help bolster protection against missiles, along with troops needed to operate it. An Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one position early Sunday and destroyed the main gate. They later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL called the incident a “further flagrant violation of international law.”

International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on UN peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, called Sunday’s incident “deeply worrying” and said attacks against peacekeepers may constitute a war crime.

Israel’s military says Hezbollah operates in the peacekeepers’ vicinity, without providing evidence.

Military officials said a tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers backed into a UN post Sunday while under fire. A smoke screen was used to provide cover, they said.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani asserted that Israel has tried to maintain constant contact with UNIFIL, and any instance of U.N. forces being harmed will be investigated at “the highest level.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah.

“We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the UN secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel.

Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders.

Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 58 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.

Israeli airstrikes overnight destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatiyeh, killing at least one person and wounding four.

“Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed. Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating, and said it continued to target the militants on Sunday.

Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.

The Red Cross said the operation had been coordinated with UN peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side.

Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza almost daily. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.

In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.

Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war’s opening weeks.

Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.

The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.

The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble.

“We are unable to reach them,” he said, asserting that dogs are eating some remains.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead.

Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins.

Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

 

Attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime, UN chief Guterres says​


United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday that any attacks against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” his spokesperson said after Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon.

It was the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks against the UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, in recent days.

“UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

“The Secretary-General reiterates that UNIFIL personnel and its premises must never be targeted. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” he said.

 
aboveandbeyond said:
Depends. If they are Genuinely there for peacekeeping then yes. If not, they deserve what they get!
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They are fulfilling a very important role and deserve respect.

However Netanyahu has no boundaries. Israelis deliberately attack international institutions to taunt the world. They have done so in the past.
 
DeadlyVenom said:
They are fulfilling a very important role and deserve respect.

However Netanyahu has no boundaries. Israelis deliberately attack international institutions to taunt the world. They have done so in the past.
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To be honest, they need to get out of the war zone. As per the BBC article, there are about 10,000 of them in position since 1978 trying to keep the peace. In the current scenario, there's no peace to be kept and they're in harms way. That's not what they signed up for.
 
Red-Indian said:
To be honest, they need to get out of the war zone. As per the BBC article, there are about 10,000 of them in position since 1978 trying to keep the peace. In the current scenario, there's no peace to be kept and they're in harms way. That's not what they signed up for.
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That should be up to the UN and not Netanyahu and his thuggish tactics.
 
DeadlyVenom said:
That should be up to the UN and not Netanyahu and his thuggish tactics.
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That's absolutely true but there's really no choice here. If Israel refuses to accept the sanctity of the Peacekeeping force, action needs to be taken against them by the UN (I'm not holding my breath).

The peacekeepers who're from 50 countries, including some I suspect from Pakistan which like India been a big contributor of manpower to UN missions, are there as observers and cannot be expected to stay put under armed assault.
 
Red-Indian said:
That's absolutely true but there's really no choice here. If Israel refuses to accept the sanctity of the Peacekeeping force, action needs to be taken against them by the UN (I'm not holding my breath).

The peacekeepers who're from 50 countries, including some I suspect from Pakistan which like India been a big contributor of manpower to UN missions, are there as observers and cannot be expected to stay put under armed assault.
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You are right but If the UN pulls them it will lose the last shred of credibility it has left and render the whole concept of peacekeeping forces useless.

The Americans will have to get involved eventually to stop this.
 
DeadlyVenom said:
You are right but If the UN pulls them it will lose the last shred of credibility it has left and render the whole concept of peacekeeping forces useless.

The Americans will have to get involved eventually to stop this.
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Well there has to be 'peace' for a peacekeeping force to keep. Both sides have to agree to a ceasefire/truce and accept the presence of the UN mission.

Israel is using the chaos of the US elections to full effect. We have a lameduck president who can only "absolutely, positively urge" Israel to refrain from attacking the UN - whatever that means. Neither Trump nor Kamala can for some weird reason be seen as not wholeheartedly supporting Israel during the final run-in.

Any involvement from the US will only come in December I fear once we have the mess of the close election past us. The President elect will want a cessation of hostilities before inauguration. Biden can take the heat of forcing a ceasefire and the new President elect gets the credit. If Trump is the winner, even that timeline is uncertain.

Netanyahu is obviously betting he can reduce South Lebanon to rubble by then so it takes a generation for Hezbollah to rise again as an organised fighting force.
 
Israeli strike kills 18 in northern Lebanon as Hezbollah steps up attacks

At least 18 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike that hit an apartment building in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross has said.

“Eighteen dead and four wounded in the strike on Aito,” the Red Cross said on Monday, referring to the Aitou village in the Christian-majority Zgharta district.

The official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli attack targeted a “residential apartment” in the village.

It’s the first time the area was attacked in a year of hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, according to NNA.

Hezbollah is mainly present in the south of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.


www.aljazeera.com

Israeli strike kills 18 in northern Lebanon as Hezbollah steps up attacks

Four people wounded in the attack that hit apartment building in Aitou village, Lebanese Red Cross says.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Israeli strike in northern Lebanon kills at least 21 people

An Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in northern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear. The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aito, which is part of the country’s Christian heartland in the north and far from the Hezbollah militant group’s main areas of influence in the south and east.

Rescue workers in Aito searched through the rubble of the building as ambulances stood by to receive the bodies of victims. Nearby buildings and cars were damaged in the strike.

The strike came a day after a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers — all of them 19 years old — and severely wounded seven others in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the army base and soldiers wounded in the attack, vowing “we will continue to strike Hezbollah without compassion in every part of Lebanon, including in Beirut.”

Sixty-one people were wounded in Sunday’s attack. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, killing more than 60 people, although Israel says most have been intercepted by its air defense systems or hit open areas.

In Lebanon, some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since last October, according to the country’s Health Ministry. More than three-quarters of the deaths occurred in the past month.

Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has vowed to keep up its attacks on Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza. Israel has said its campaign against Hezbollah is aimed at stopping those attacks so displaced Israelis can feel safe returning to their homes near the Lebanese border.

A strike and an inferno in a Gaza hospital courtyard

Earlier on Monday, an Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip killed at least four people and triggered a fire that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns.

The Israeli military said the strike in Gaza targeted militants hiding among civilians, without providing evidence. In recent months it has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.

Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.

Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.

horrifying, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields,” the White House National Security Council said in a statement.

The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while Palestinian militants abducted around 250 hostages. Around 100 are still being held inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, and large areas of the coastal territory have been completely destroyed.

Israeli rights groups warn of forced transfer in northern Gaza

Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south and has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of the month. Hundreds of thousands of people from the north heeded Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war and have not been allowed to return.

That has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel intends to implement a plan devised by former generals in which it would order all civilians out of northern Gaza and label anyone remaining there a combatant — a surrender-or-starve strategy that rights groups say would violate international law.

The plan has been presented to the Israeli government, but it’s unclear whether it has been adopted. The military says it has not received such orders.

Israeli rights groups on Monday called on the international community to prevent Israel from carrying out the plan, saying there are “alarming signs” that Israel is beginning to implement it.

The statement, signed by B’Tselem, Gisha, Yesh Din and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, warned that states “have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer.”

On Monday, the Israeli military said it allowed 30 trucks carrying flour and food into north Gaza. COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the trucks entered northern Gaza through the Erez crossing.

SOURCE: AP NEWS
 
US says it opposes scope of Israeli air strikes in Beirut

The United States, Israel's closest ally, on Tuesday said it opposed the scope of the country's air strikes in Beirut over the past few weeks amid a rising death toll and fears of wider escalation involving Iran.

Israeli military evacuation orders were also affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, according to the U.N. refugee agency, two weeks after Israel began incursions into the south of the country that it says are aimed at pushing back Hezbollah.

Some Western countries have been pushing for a ceasefire between the two neighbours, as well as in Gaza, though the United States says it continues to support Israel and was sending an anti-missile system and troops.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. had expressed its concerns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration on the recent strikes.

"When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to," he told reporters, adopting a harsher tone than Washington has taken so far.


Reuters
 
Lebanon says five dead in Israeli strikes on Nabatiyeh municipality

Lebanon’s health ministry said five people were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday on the municipality of the southern city of Nabatiyeh, after an official said the mayor was among the dead.

“The Israeli enemy raid... on two buildings, that of the Nabatiyeh municipality and the union of municipalities, killed five people in a preliminary toll,” the ministry said in a statement, adding rescuers were searching for survivors under the rubble.

The mayor of Nabatiyeh was among those killed, authorities said.

“The mayor of Nabatiyeh, among others... was martyred. It’s a massacre,” Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk said, adding he had been in the municipality building.

Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers also said several people were killed in the strike on the municipality building including mayor Ahmad Kahil.

UN Lebanon envoy urges protection of civilians

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon urged the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure after deadly Israeli strikes hit municipality buildings in the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Wednesday.

“Today, Israeli air strikes hit the town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, yet again,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a statement, adding that “civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times.”

The Israeli military launched strikes in southern Beirut on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying it would leave Hezbollah forces near his country’s border.

An AFP journalist saw black smoke rising from Beirut’s Haret Hreik area after two strikes, which followed an Israeli military warning for residents to evacuate.

One of the strikes targeted weapons “stockpiled by Hezbollah in an underground storage facility,” the military said.

Netanyahu’s refusal to halt the offensive came as the United States ramped up pressure on Israel, criticizing the bombing of Beirut and urging more aid access for Gazans.

In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu said he was “opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was,” according to his office.

Israel insists it needs a buffer zone along its northern border, free of Hezbollah fighters.

“Netanyahu clarified that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this (a buffer zone) and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping,” the statement said.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said the only solution was a ceasefire while threatening to expand its missile strikes across Israel.

“Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place” in Israel, he said.

Early Wednesday Israel’s military said about 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at the country’s north, without any reports of casualties.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched several salvos of rockets on northern Israel and army positions.

The Israeli military said it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists during exchanges of fire and aerial strikes” in Lebanon.

Israel bombed several areas in southern and eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, including in the Bekaa Valley, where a hospital was knocked out of service, the official National News Agency reported.

The Israeli military said it had captured three Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon.

Lebanon’s health ministry reported nine deaths from strikes on the country’s south, and five more in the east, including three children.

The US State Department criticized Israeli strikes.

“We have made clear that we are opposed to the campaign the way we’ve seen it conducted over the past weeks” in Beirut, said spokesman Matthew Miller.

In a letter to Israel’s government on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned US weapons deliveries to Israel could be withheld unless more aid reaches Gazans.

The letter made clear “there are changes that they need to make again to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today,” Miller said.

The United Nations warned restrictions on aid to Gaza were the worst since Israel’s offensive on Hamas began in October last year.

“We see now what is probably the worst restrictions we’ve seen on humanitarian aid, ever,” said James Elder, a spokesman for the UN’s children’s agency UNICEF, noting there were several days where no trucks were allowed into Gaza.

Israeli forces have been conducting air and ground assaults on northern Gaza and Jabalia, amid claims Hamas militants were regrouping in the area.

“The whole area has been reduced to ashes,” said Rana Abdel Majid, 38, from northern Gaza’s Al-Faluja area, describing the “indiscriminate, merciless bombing” that has levelled entire blocks.

Israel’s military said it had “eliminated over 50 terrorists in close-quarters encounters and aerial strikes” in Jabalia during the past day.

At a shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nuseirat camp, Fatima Al-Azab said: “There is no safety anywhere.”

“They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up,” she said.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza after an October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages killed in captivity.

The Israeli campaign has killed 42,344 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory which the UN considers reliable.

Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon from September 23, launching a ground offensive a week later to push the group back from its northern border.

Hezbollah has fired thousands of projectiles into Israel over the past year in support of Hamas, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis.

At least 1,356 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel intensified its bombing last month, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

The war in Lebanon, which has suffered years of economic crisis, has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.

Israel is also weighing how to respond to Iran’s launch of about 200 missiles at the country on October 1.

Netanyahu’s office said Israel — and not its top ally the United States — would decide how to strike back.

“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” it said.

Iran’s top diplomat told UN chief Antonio Guterres his country was ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if Israel attacks, his office said.

The Iranian barrage was in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and another that killed Iranian general Abbas Nilforoushan on September 27.

SOURCE: https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2575461/middle-east
 
Because the zionists are finding it tougher to face real men on the battlefield in Lebanon rather than Palestinian children, they are enraged and just bombing and killing indiscriminately from the air.
 
Middle East latest: Israeli jets pummel southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs

Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday, killing at least 27 people including a city mayor, Lebanese officials said.

Hezbollah acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group would ramp up attacks on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike Monday on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations called for an independent investigation.

Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.


apnews.com

Middle East latest: Israeli jets pummel southern Lebanon and Beirut's suburbs

Israeli jets have struck southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs and officials say at least 27 people were killed, including a city mayor.
apnews.com apnews.com
 
Israel Strikes Near Beirut for First Time in Days

There were also attacks in southern Lebanon that killed at least 19 people. Israel’s military said the strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets. They came on the same day the Lebanese health ministry said a case of cholera had been detected in the north, a sign of deteriorating conditions.

www.nytimes.com

Israel Strikes Near Beirut for First Time in Days

There were also attacks in southern Lebanon that killed at least 19 people. Israel’s military said the strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets. They came on the same day the Lebanese health ministry said a case of cholera had been detected in the north, a sign of deteriorating conditions.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Strike launched toward Israeli prime minister's house

Israel’s government said a drone was launched toward the the prime minister’s house Saturday, with no casualties.

Sirens wailed Saturday morning in Israel, warning of incoming fire from Lebanon, with a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea, the Israeli government said.

Neither he nor his wife were home and there were no casualties, said his spokesperson in a statement.

The strikes into Israel come as its war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks.

Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.

A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week.

On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.

“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said.

SOURCE: The Canadian Press
 
BouncerGuy said:
Strike launched toward Israeli prime minister's house

Israel’s government said a drone was launched toward the the prime minister’s house Saturday, with no casualties.

Sirens wailed Saturday morning in Israel, warning of incoming fire from Lebanon, with a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea, the Israeli government said.

Neither he nor his wife were home and there were no casualties, said his spokesperson in a statement.

The strikes into Israel come as its war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks.

Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.

A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week.

On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.

“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said.

SOURCE: The Canadian Press
Click to expand...
Footage is here as well.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1847542942443155938
 
Lebanese army says three soldiers killed after Israeli strike

The Lebanese army says three of its soldiers have been killed by an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south of Lebanon.

The Lebanese army is not affiliated with the much larger Hezbollah organisation - a proscribed terror group in many Western countries - which boasted a reported 100,000 fighters before this latest war broke out.

The army said an airstrike hit a military vehicle on the Ain Ebel-Hanin road, which lies just a few kilometres from the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Israel has not commented on the claims.

Israel has previously said it is fighting solely against Hezbollah, and not against the Lebanese army or the Lebanese state, but there has been more than one occasion where Israeli and Lebanese army soldiers have clashed since the IDF launched ground operations.

Sky News
 

Hezbollah says launched ‘big rocket salvo’ at north Israel army base​


Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched rockets on Sunday at an Israeli army base east of the northern town of Safed.

Hezbollah fighters fired “a big rocket salvo” at an Israeli army base east of Safed, the group said, adding the attack was “in defense of Lebanon” and “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on villages and homes.”

 
Lebanese flee, blasts heard, as Israel warns of strikes on Hezbollah finance arm

Hundreds of Beirut residents fled their homes late on Sunday after Israel said it was preparing attacks on sites linked to the financial operations of Lebanon's Hezbollah group and told people to leave those areas immediately.

Soon after the Israeli warning, several blasts were heard and a large fire was seen in Beirut's southern suburbs. There was no immediate information on what caused the explosions, or details of any casualties.

Panicked crowds clogged the streets and caused traffic jams in some parts of Beirut as they tried to get to neighbourhoods thought to be safer, witnesses said.

"Residents of Lebanon, the IDF (Israeli military) will begin attacking infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association - get away from it immediately," the Israeli military's spokesperson said in a statement on X.

Al-Qard al-Hassan - which the U.S. has said is used by Iran-backed Hezbollah to manage its finances - has more than 30 branches across Lebanon including 15 in densely populated parts of central Beirut and its suburbs.

There was no immediate statement from the organisation, Hezbollah or the Lebanese government.

Asked by journalists whether the branches could be considered military targets, a senior Israeli intelligence official said: "The purpose of this strike is to target the ability of Hezbollah economic function both during the war but also afterwards to rebuild and to rearm ...on the day after."

Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted a year ago when the group began launching rockets in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.


 

Israel bombs Beirut association accused of financing Hezbollah in latest escalation​


Israel began bombing Lebanese branches of an association accused of financing the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, Lebanese state media reported late Sunday, a further escalation of Israel’s nearly month-long war.

The National News Agency reported 11 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, many of them targeting Al-Qard Al-Hassan. Other strikes hit the association in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley and in the country’s south, NNA added.

It also reported that a strike had landed near Beirut’s airport, the main entry-point of humanitarian assistance to the country and a major evacuation hub for those fleeing the conflict.

AFP footage showed large plumes of smoke rising close to the facility.

Soon after, Hezbollah said it had downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone Sunday, without saying where. The group also said it had fired several rocket salvos at Israeli troops across the border.

The strikes came after Israel said it had hit dozens of targets during air raids on Lebanon earlier Sunday, as Hezbollah claimed numerous rocket strikes over the border and clashes with Israeli ground troops.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon said the Israeli army had “deliberately” damaged one of their positions, the latest incident reported by the force.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops Sunday that the military was stepping up strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, destroying places the group “planned to use as launchpads for attacks against Israel.”

The military warned it was about to attack offices of US-sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan, calling on residents to move away from its facilities. Strikes began shortly after, according to NNA.

They mark an expansion of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, as it seeks to degrade the group’s ability to fund operations, having already killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders.

Israel turned its focus north towards Hezbollah last month.

Full-scale war erupted after a year of exchanges over the border as Hezbollah fired rockets in what it called support for Hamas Palestinian militants at war with Israel in Gaza since October 7 last year.

 

Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem fled Lebanon and is now living in Tehran — report​


Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem has been residing in Tehran after fleeing Lebanon on an Iranian plane over two weeks ago, the UAE-based Erem News outlet reports, quoting an anonymous Iranian source.

Qassem reportedly left Beirut on October 5 on the aircraft used by Tehran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for a state visit to Lebanon and Syria. His transfer was ordered by top leaders of the Islamic Republic for fear of assassination by Israel, the source says.

Qassem has delivered three speeches since the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. While the first was recorded in Beirut, the second and third were delivered in Tehran, the source says.

www.timesofisrael.com

Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem fled Lebanon and is now living in Tehran — report

* * *
www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
Palestinian in northern Gaza describes "catastrophic" situation as Israeli army advances

A Palestinian resident has described the “catastrophic” situation in northern Gaza, where he said he has been trapped in his home with dozens of others for more than two weeks as Israeli military operations intensify in the area.

Imran Jaber, a professor and resident of Jabalya refugee camp, told CNN he’s been “besieged” for 17 days along with his family and five children “under very extreme conditions.”

Eighty others, including women, children and elderly people, are also sheltering in a 500-square-meter space (5,381 square feet) at his home after their houses were destroyed in Israeli strikes, Jaber said.

Since October 6, the Israeli military had made life in north Gaza “impossible for Palestinians,” many of whom were already facing starvation and repeated displacement, the United Nations Human Rights Office said on Sunday.

“While the Israeli military has demanded that all civilians leave north Gaza, it has continued to relentlessly bomb and attack the area, especially in and around Jabalya Camp,” it said.

In Jabalya, “you have two options, either you die from the strikes or die from the diseases as a result of no treatment or hospitals or medication, or you die from hunger because there is no food or water.”

The UN said intensified military operations are “resulting in scores of civilian fatalities and near total lack of humanitarian aid reaching populations in the north.”

Fuel, which operates the water distillation pumps, hasn’t entered northern Gaza, Jaber says, meaning they haven’t had any clean water for about 20 days since the latest Israeli incursion began.

“We drink the water of swamps that is left that we used to give to our birds and animals,” Jaber said on the phone.

Source: CNN
 
Lebanon says four dead in Israeli strike near southern Beirut hospital

Four people including a child have been killed in an Israeli air strike near the main government hospital in southern Beirut, the Lebanese health ministry says.

The strike appeared to hit the car park of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, a hospital source told Reuters news agency. The health ministry said 24 people had been injured.

It was among 13 air strikes that hit south Beirut on Monday evening. The Israeli military said it was attacking facilities linked to Hezbollah.

An Israeli spokesman had earlier warned people to move away from several locations in southern Beirut, however Rafik Hariri hospital was not among the locations mentioned.


www.bbc.com

Lebanon says four dead in Israeli strike near southern Beirut hospital

Thirteen air strikes hit locations in southern Beirut on Monday evening, authorities said.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 

Israeli strikes pound Lebanon and Gaza​


• In Beirut, an Israeli strike outside Lebanon’s largest public hospital killed at least 18 people, including four children, the country’s health ministry said. The strike at Rafik Hariri University Hospital was not in an area covered by evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military, a CNN analysis found.

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel for meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday as the US seeks to advance efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

• In northern Gaza, almost no aid is entering the Jabalya refugee camp, the UN warned. Crowds of displaced Palestinians have been evacuated from the camp, in an area where over 400 people have been killed in the Israeli military’s two-week offensive.

• Israeli authorities have acknowledged that Hezbollah’s drone attack struck Netanyahu’s house on Saturday. Neither the Israeli leader nor his wife were at home at the time

Source: CNN
 
Hezbollah claims responsibility for drone attack on Netanyahu holiday home

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for a drone attack last week on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday residence in Caesarea in northern Israel.

“The Islamic Resistance claims responsibility for the Caesarea operation and targeting Netanyahu’s home,” the head of Hezbollah’s media office, Mohammad Afif, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

One of three drones launched from Lebanon hit Netanyahu’s holiday residence on Saturday. His spokesperson said the prime minister was not in the vicinity at the time of the attack and there were no casualties.

Afif said that if in the previous attack Netanyahu was not hurt, “the coming days and nights and the [battle]fields are between us.” Afif appeared to be hinting that Hezbollah might carry out similar attempts in the future.

He also said there would be no negotiations with Israel while fighting continues and acknowledged that some Hezbollah fighters have been taken captive by the Israeli military.


www.aljazeera.com

Hezbollah claims responsibility for drone attack on Netanyahu holiday home

Hezbollah spokesman also acknowledges that some of the group’s fighters have been taken captive by the Israeli military.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 

Israel strikes Lebanon's Tyre as civilians flee new evacuation orders​


Israel has carried out at least four air strikes on the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre, hours after expanding its evacuation orders to cover several central neighbourhoods, Lebanon’s state news agency says.

Videos showed huge clouds of black smoke rising from a seafront area that is only a few hundred metres from a Unesco World Heritage-listed Roman ruins. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

The Israeli military earlier warned civilians to leave, saying it was going to act “forcefully” against the armed group Hezbollah there.

Tens of thousands of residents had already fled the city in recent weeks in response to Israel’s intense air campaign and ground invasion.

But before the strikes began a spokesman for a disaster management unit said about 14,000 people were still living in the city, including those displaced from elsewhere in the south.

“You could say that the entire city of Tyre is being evacuated," Bilal Kashmar told AFP news agency, adding that many people were heading towards the suburbs.

Overnight, Lebanese media reported that Israeli aircraft carried out multiple strikes on the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley - all areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

The Israeli military said the strikes in Beirut targeted weapons storage and manufacturing facilities, as well as command centres belonging to Hezbollah.

The military also said it had killed the Hezbollah sector commanders for the southern areas of Jibchit, Jouaiya, and Qana in air strikes over the past several days, and that its troops had killed about 70 Hezbollah fighters during operations inside southern Lebanon to dismantle the group’s infrastructure and weapons caches.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

However, the group did say its fighters had launched barrages of rockets into Israel on Wednesday, including one in the morning that targeted the Gilot intelligence base, which is north of the central city of Tel Aviv.

Rocket alert sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, prompting senior US officials travelling with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to be ushered to a safe room in their hotel. It is not known whether or not Blinken himself was also force to shelter.

Another rocket barrage hit two factory buildings in the northern Israeli towns of Acre and Kiryat Bialik, causing damage but no injuries.

Israel’s launched its full-scale military campaign against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

More than 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,900 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

www.bbc.com

Israel strikes Lebanese city of Tyre after evacuation orders

Videos showed clouds of smoke rising from a central area near a Unesco-listed archaeological site.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Israel strikes Lebanon's Tyre, close to site of ancient Roman ruins

Israel has carried out at least four air strikes on the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre, hours after expanding its evacuation orders to cover several central neighbourhoods.

Videos showed huge clouds of black smoke rising from a seafront area that is only a few hundred metres from Unesco World Heritage-listed Roman ruins.

Lebanon’s state news agency said the strikes caused “massive destruction” to homes and infrastructure, but there were no reports of any casualties.

The Israeli military said it targeted command-and-control centres of Hezbollah, including its Southern Front headquarters.

The military’s Arabic spokesman had earlier issued a map of the neighbourhoods where he said it was going to act “forcefully” against the Iran-backed armed group.

Tens of thousands of residents had already fled the city in recent weeks in response to Israel’s intense air campaign and ground invasion.

But before the strikes began, a spokesman for a disaster management unit said about 14,000 people were still living in the city, including those displaced from elsewhere in the south.

“You could say that the entire city of Tyre is being evacuated," Bilal Kashmar told AFP news agency, adding that many people were heading towards the suburbs.


www.bbc.com

Israel strikes Lebanese city of Tyre after evacuation orders

Videos showed clouds of smoke rising from a central area near a Unesco-listed archaeological site.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Three Lebanese journalists killed in Israeli strike

Three journalists have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a building known to be housing reporters in south-eastern Lebanon, witnesses have told the BBC.

The attack was carried out on a guesthouse in a compound in Hasbaya being used by more than a dozen journalists from at least seven media organisations - with a courtyard containing cars clearly marked with "press".

The three men worked for broadcasters Al-Manar TV and Al Mayadeen TV, which issued statements paying tribute to their killed employees.

Lebanon's information minister said the attack was deliberate and described it as a "war crime".

The Israeli military has not yet commented, but has previously denied targeting journalists.

Those killed were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and engineer Mohamed Reda from pro-Iranian news channel Al Mayadeen, as well as camera operator Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar.

The Lebanese ministry of health said three others were injured in the blast.

Five reporters had been killed in prior Israeli strikes in Lebanon, including Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah.

Footage broadcast by Al-Jadeed TV - whose journalists were also sharing the house - showed a bombed-out building with a collapsed roof and floors covered in rubble.

A vehicle used for TV broadcasts was overturned on its side, its satellite dish mangled with cabling nearby.

"All official parties were told that this house was being used as a stay-house for journalists. We coordinated with them all," an Al-Jadeed journalist, caked in concrete dust, said in a live broadcast while panting and coughing.

Lebanese journalists covering the conflict in the south of the country had to relocate from nearby Marj'youn to Hasbaya, as the former became too dangerous.

She said ceilings had fallen in on them, and they were surrounded by rubble and dust, with the sound of fighter jets overhead.

Each news organisation had their own building in the compound, she said, and the building housing the Al Mayadeen reporters was "obliterated" while al-Manar employees were inside.

Ms Fawwaz said it was a media compound known as such to both Israel and Hezbollah.

"The airstrike was carried out on purpose. Everyone knew we were there. All the cars were labelled as press and TV. There wasn't even a warning given to us."

She added: "They are trying to terrorise us just like they do in Gaza. Israelis are trying to prevent us from covering the story."

Lebanon's information minister accused Israel of intentionally targeting journalists, in contravention of international law.

"The Israeli enemy waited for the journalists' nighttime break to betray them in their sleep," Ziad Makary wrote in a post on X.

"This is an assassination, after monitoring and tracking, with prior planning and design, as there were 18 journalists there representing seven media institutions."

Hasbaya, about five miles (eight kilometres) from the Israeli border, is inhabited by Muslims, Christians, as well as people from the Druze ethnic and religious minority.

It has seen attacks on its peripheries in recent weeks, but this was the first strike on the settlement itself.

The attack comes as part of an expanding conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has been intensifying air strikes for weeks - as well as launching a ground invasion on border towns and villages in the south.

Lebanese authorities have recorded over 1,700 air strikes across the country in the past three weeks.

Hostilities broke out between Israel and Hezbollah on 8 October last year, the day after Hamas's attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people. The Iran-backed armed group has since been firing rockets and drones into Israel in what it described as "solidarity" with Palestinians in Gaza.

Nearly 2,600 people in Lebanon have been killed in the current conflict, according to the country's health ministry - many of the deaths occurring since Israel began escalating its attacks on 23 September.

Around 60,000 people in northern Israel have been displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire, and the Israeli government has declared returning them to their homes to be a key objective.

In southern Lebanon, satellite imagery examined by the BBC shows Israel's intensified bombing campaign has caused more damage to buildings in two weeks than occurred during a year of cross-border fighting.

Data shows that more than 3,600 buildings in Lebanon appear to have been damaged or destroyed between 2 and 14 October - about 54% of the total damage.

The attack comes days after the Israeli military accused six Al Jazeera journalists working in northern Gaza of being affiliated with Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups.

The Qatari broadcaster said it denies and "vehemently condemns" the allegations.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 123 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a war in the territory last year.

Gaza's Hamas-run health authority has reported more than 42,000 people killed since.

Two Israeli journalists have also been killed in the conflict.

BBC
 
Israel and Hezbollah trade fire across Lebanon border, Blinken calls for urgent resolution

An Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanese officials said, while Hezbollah killed two people in northern Israel and violence raged in Gaza as Washington pressed for a way out of the conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an urgent need to get a diplomatic resolution, a day after he said Washington did not want to see a protracted campaign in Lebanon by its ally Israel.

Israel launched its major offensive in Lebanon a month ago, saying it was targeting the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah group to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the north due to cross-border rocket attacks.

Beirut authorities say Israel's Lebanon offensive has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million, sparking a humanitarian crisis.


 
Lebanon says 60 killed in Israel strikes on eastern valley

At least 60 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Two children were among those killed in strikes which targeted 12 areas in the Baalbek region, officials said.

And 58 people were wounded, the ministry said, adding rescue efforts were still under way in the valley, which is a Hezbollah stronghold.

The Israeli military has not yet commented.

Israel has carried out thousands of air strikes across Lebanon over the past five weeks, targeting what it has says are Hezbollah's operatives, infrastructure and weapons.

Baalbek governor Bachie Khodr called the attacks the "most violent" in the area since Israel escalated the conflict against Hezbollah last month.

Unverified video posted on social media showed damage to buildings and forests ablaze, as rescuers searched for the injured.

Earlier on Monday, Israeli air strikes on the coastal city of Tyre left seven dead and 17 injured, Lebanon's health ministry said. Israel issued a warning for people to leave the centre of the city.

Hezbollah said it clashed with Israeli troops near Lebanon's southern border on Monday and fired rockets at a naval base inside Israel near Haifa.

Cross-border hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah broke out after the armed Lebanese group started firing rockets in and around northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel.

The Lebanese health ministry says more than 2,600 people have been killed and more than 12,400 wounded in Lebanon since then.

Israel invaded southern Lebanon in a dramatic escalation on 30 September to destroy, it said, Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure in “limited, localised, targeted raids”.

Lebanon's government says up to 1.3 million people have been internally displaced as a result of the conflict.

BBC
 
Eight wounded in new attack on UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) says eight of its peacekeepers were wounded after a rocket, likely fired by Hezbollah or an affiliated group, hit its headquarters in southern Lebanon.

“A rocket hit UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, setting a vehicle workshop on fire,” the force said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it “was fired from north of UNIFIL’s headquarters, likely by Hezbollah or an affiliated group”.

Austria’s Federal Ministry of Defence said the attack injured right Austrian soldiers with the force, condemning the attack and adding it was “currently not possible to say where the attack came from”.

“Eight Austrian army soldiers from the UNIFIL contingent were injured today at 12:58 pm [10:58 GMT] by a rocket hit in Camp Naqoura; none of them seriously,” the statement said.

The injuries were “minor and superficial”, with none of the soldiers, who are members of a repair platoon, requiring emergency medical attention, the statement added.


www.aljazeera.com

Eight wounded in new attack on UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon

UNIFIL says rocket attack likely fired by Hezbollah or ‘affiliated group’ hit its headquarters in Naqoura.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Israel cabinet discusses Lebanon ceasefire framework: Minister

Israel’s security cabinet is discussing the terms of a truce with Hezbollah in south Lebanon, where Israeli troops are conducting a ground offensive, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said Wednesday.

“There are discussions, I think it will still take time,” Cohen told Israeli public radio.

According to Israel’s Channel 12 television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with ministers on Tuesday evening on Israel’s demands in return for a 60-day truce.

These include a Hezbollah pullback north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli frontier, the Lebanese army’s deployment along the border, an international intervention mechanism to enforce the truce and a guarantee that Israel will maintain freedom of action in case of threats.

“Thanks to all the army’s operations these past months and particularly these past weeks... Israel can come in a position of strength after the entire Hezbollah leadership was eliminated and over 2,000 Hezbollah terrorist infrastructures were hit,” said Cohen, a former intelligence minister.

According to Israeli media, US President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and special envoy Amos Hochstein will head to the region Wednesday to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss conditions for a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

The war in Lebanon began late last month, nearly a year after Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border fire into Israel in support of Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.

The Israeli military says it has lost 37 soldiers in its Lebanon campaign since it launched ground operations on September 30.

 

New Hezbollah leader says will accept ceasefire with Israel if terms ‘suitable’​


Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem on Wednesday said the group would agree to a ceasefire with Israel under acceptable terms, but added that a viable deal has yet to be presented.

“If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable,” Qassem said in a pre-recorded speech, his first since he was named Hezbollah’s secretary general on Tuesday.

But Hezbollah “will not beg for a ceasefire,” he added, noting that political efforts to secure a deal have yet to yield results.

“No project has been proposed that Israel agrees to and that we can discuss,” he said.

Qassem replaces Hasan Nasrallah who was assassinated by Israel on September 27 after more than 30 years at the helm of the Iran-backed group.

He takes over as Hezbollah is locked in all-out war with Israel, which ramped up strikes on the group’s strongholds and sent in ground forces across the border last month.

“Get out of our land to reduce your losses. If you stay, you will pay more than you have ever paid in your life,” Qassem said, adding that Hezbollah could sustain fighting “for days, weeks and months.”

Qassem acknowledged that Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah figures dealt the group a “painful” blow.

But he said Hezbollah “has started to recover by filling the gaps, appointing alternative leaders and commencing work to organize everything.”

Qassem also pledged to uphold a war strategy laid out by his predecessor.

“My work program is a continuation of the work programme of our leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” he said, pledging to press on with “the war plan that he developed.”

 
Israel strikes historic Lebanese city of Baalbek after ordering evacuation

Israel has carried out heavy air strikes in Lebanon’s historic city of Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley, after tens of thousands residents fled in response to evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military.

Mayor Mustafa al-Shell told the BBC that more than 20 strikes were reported in the Baalbek area, with five inside the city itself, where there is a Unesco-listed ancient Roman temple complex.

Lebanon’s state news agency said diesel tanks were also hit in the neighbouring town of Douris, where Mr Shell said pictures showed a huge column of black smoke rising into the air.

The Israeli military said it struck fuel depots belonging to Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley, without giving details.

The attacks came as Hezbollah’s new secretary-general said the group would continue its war plan against Israel under his leadership and that it would not “cry out” for a ceasefire.

Speaking a day after his appointment was announced, Naim Qassem said he would follow the agenda of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut last month.

Qassem made the speech from an undisclosed location amid reports suggesting he had fled to Iran, which is Hezbollah’s main supporter.


www.bbc.com

Israel strikes Lebanese city of Baalbek after ordering evacuation

Tens of thousands flee as the Israeli military says it struck fuel depots belonging to Hezbollah.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Lebanon, Israel could agree to ceasefire within days, Lebanese prime minister says

Lebanon's prime minister expressed hope on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with Israel would be announced within days as Israel's public broadcaster published what it said was a draft agreement providing for an initial 60-day truce.

The document, which broadcaster Kan said was a leaked proposal written by Washington, said Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the 60-day ceasefire. It largely aligned with details reported earlier by Reuters based on two sources familiar with the matter.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he had not believed a deal would be possible until after Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. But he said he became more optimistic after speaking on Wednesday with U.S. envoy for the Middle East Amos Hochstein, who was due to travel to Israel on Thursday.

"Hochstein, during his call with me, suggested to me that we could reach an agreement before the end of the month and before November 5th," Mikati told Lebanon's Al Jadeed television.


 

US envoys in push for Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire​


Senior American officials are returning to the Middle East to try to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has expressed cautious optimism about a potential deal.

Brett McGurk, President Biden’s Middle East co-ordinator, and Amos Hochstein, who has led negotiations in the conflict with Hezbollah, are in Israel for talks with the country’s authorities, although it was not clear whether any progress could be made ahead of the US presidential election, next week.

Since the conflict escalated five weeks ago, Israel launched widespread air strikes across Lebanon and a ground invasion of areas near the border.

At least 2,200 people have been killed in the country, according to the Lebanese health ministry, and 1.2 million displaced, mostly Shia Muslims, heightening sectarian tensions and adding pressure on public services that were already struggling after years of a severe economic crisis.

The Israeli government says its goal is to change the security situation along the border and guarantee the return of around 60,000 residents who have been displaced because of Hezbollah’s rocket, missile and drone attacks.

On Wednesday, Israeli public broadcaster Kan published what it said was a draft agreement, written by Washington and dated Saturday, for an initial 60-day ceasefire.

Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the deal, and the Lebanese army would be deployed along the border. During the pause, Hezbollah would end its armed presence in the area.

The objective is to pave the way for the full implementation of United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The text, among other things, called for the removal of all armed groups, including Hezbollah, from the area south of the Litani River, 30km (20 miles) north of the border. Only the UN peacekeeping force known as Unifll and the Lebanese army would be allowed there.

Israel, however, distrustful that the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will be able to keep Hezbollah away from the border, reportedly wants to be given the right to strike the group if needed after the end of the war. This demand is likely to be rejected by the Lebanese authorities, who say there should be no changes to Resolution 1701.

When asked about the document reported by Kan, White House national security spokesperson Sean Savett said there were “many reports and drafts circulating” that “do not reflect the current state of negotiations”. He did not, however, respond to a question about whether that text was the basis for further talks.

Hezbollah, a powerful militia and political party which is armed and financially supported by Iran, faces domestic pressure for a deal, particularly from critics who say the group dragged Lebanon into a conflict which was not in the country’s interests.

Israel’s bombardments have killed most of the Hezbollah leadership, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, and brought extensive destruction to areas of southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the group holds sway.

The group started its campaign the day after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October last year, and has long said its attacks will continue unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza. It is not clear whether it would be willing to change its position.

www.bbc.com

Israel-Hezbollah: US envoys in ceasefire push

Diplomats return to the region, as Lebanon's PM expresses cautious optimism over a truce.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 

Hezbollah attack kills five in northern Israel as US envoys push truce​


A Hezbollah attack on northern Israel’s Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday as Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed six health workers in the country’s south.

US envoys and Israeli officials were due to meet in Israel later to discuss efforts towards a ceasefire in both Lebanon, where Israeli forces are battling Iran-backed Hezbollah, and in Gaza, where they are fighting Hamas Palestinian militants.

Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon for a second consecutive day. On Wednesday it conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city, which is famed for its Roman temples.

Dozens of cars could be seen speeding out of the area after Thursday’s warning, with wafts of black smoke still visible emanating from the town of Douris, where an Israeli strike the previous day destroyed Hezbollah fuel stocks, according to the Israeli military and a Lebanese security source.

Thousands fleeing the violence have sought shelter in the nearby Christian-majority town Deir al-Ahmar, where local official Jean Fakhry said authorities were struggling to cover even a fraction of needs and some people had spent the night in their cars.

“We cannot continue this way,” he said.

The killing of six Lebanese health workers and wounding of four others in three separate strikes across south Lebanon on Thursday brought the total toll of health workers killed and wounded in over a year of Israeli strikes to 178 and 279 respectively, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Hezbollah said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near the southern town of Khiyam on Thursday. It marked the fourth straight day of fighting in and around the strategic hilltop town, which is home to one of the largest Shia communities in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah aims to keep Israeli forces out of the town to prevent them detonating homes and buildings, as has happened on a large scale in other border towns, a source familiar with the group’s thinking told Reuters.

Hezbollah says its fighters have prevented Israel from fully occupying or controlling any southern villages, while Israel says it is carrying out limited ground operations aimed at destroying the group’s infrastructure.

The White House said on Wednesday US security official Brett McGurk would visit Israel on Thursday along with Amos Hochstein, a US envoy who has sought to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

A US official said they would discuss a range of issues “including Gaza, Lebanon, hostages, Iran and broader regional matters” during the visit.

Sources previously told Reuters talks were centered on a 60-day pause to allow for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which would entail Hezbollah withdrawing its armed presence from south of the Litani River.

 
Seven killed in Israel in deadliest Hezbollah rocket strikes in months

Two separate Hezbollah rocket attacks have killed seven people in northern Israel, authorities say, in the deadliest day of such strikes in months.

An Israeli farmer and four Thai agricultural workers were killed when rockets landed near Metula, a town on the border with Lebanon, Israeli and Thai officials said.

Later, an Israeli woman and her adult son were killed in an olive grove near Kibbutz Afek, on the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.

Hezbollah said it had fired barrages of rockets towards the Krayot area north of Haifa and at Israeli forces south of the Lebanese town of Khiam, which is across the border from Metula.

The Israeli military identified two projectiles crossing from Lebanon and falling in an open area near Metula on Thursday morning.

The Israeli farmer who was killed was named by local media as Omer Weinstein, a 46-year-old father-of-four from nearby Kibbutz Dafna.

Thailand's Foreign Minister, Maris Sangiampongsa, said on Friday that four Thai nationals were killed by rocket fire.

A fifth Thai worker was injured, he added.

Videos posted online showed them being transferred by helicopter to the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Mr Weinstein and the foreign workers were in an agricultural field near the border fence at the time of the attack.

It cited a member of the local emergency response team as saying the Israeli military had permitted them to enter the area despite Metula being inside a closed military zone.

The military established the zone at the end of September, just before it launched a ground invasion of Lebanon with the aim of destroying Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure.

Thursday’s second rocket attack reportedly hit an agricultural area near Kibbutz Afek, which is about 65km (40 miles) south-west of Metula and 28km from the Lebanese border.

The military said a total of 55 projectiles were fired towards the Western Galilee region, where the kibbutz is located, as well as the Central Galilee and Upper Galilee in the early afternoon. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and others fell in open areas, it added.

According to Haaretz, 60-year-old Mina Hasson and her 30-year-old son, Karmi, were killed by a rocket that hit an olive grove where they were picking olives.

A 70-year-old man was also lightly injured by shrapnel and taken to Rambam hospital, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

"We were called to the olive grove and saw a man in his 30s lying on the ground, unconscious,” MDA paramedics Mazor and Yishai Levy told the Jerusalem Post.

“We began resuscitation efforts while conducting further searches, during which we located another casualty, also in critical condition with multi-system injuries. We provided her with medical treatment and performed resuscitation, but unfortunately, we had to pronounce both of them dead," they said.

Meanwhile, the head of the Irish military said a UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon that houses Irish troops was hit by a rocket fired towards Israel on Wednesday night.

The rocket landed inside an unoccupied area of Camp Shamrock, which is 7km (4 miles) from the Israeli border, causing minimal damage on the ground and no casualties, Lt Gen Sean Clancy said.

Irish premier Simon Harris said: "Thankfully everyone is safe but it is completely unacceptable that this happened. Peacekeepers are protected under international law and the onus is on all sides to ensure that protection.”

The deadly rocket attacks in northern Israel came as two US special envoys met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss a possible ceasefire deal to end the war with Hezbollah.

Netanyahu told Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk that the main issue was what he called Israel's ability to “thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon in a way that will return our residents safely to their homes”, his office said in a statement.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah - which it proscribes as a terrorist organisation - after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It said it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of northern Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

More than 2,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,200 in the past five weeks, and 1.2 million others displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israeli authorities say more than 60 people have been killed by Hezbollah rocket, drone, and missile attacks in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military said troops were continuing operations inside southern Lebanon and that aircraft had struck dozens of Hezbollah targets throughout the country.

Lebanon’s health ministry meanwhile said Israeli strikes had killed six paramedics in three southern towns.

Four from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Society’s Civil Defence branch, which provides emergency services, were killed when Israeli forces targeted a gathering point at Derdghaya junction, it said.

A fifth IHS paramedic was killed in an air strike on a vehicle in Deir al-Zahrani, while a strike in Zefta killed a paramedic from the Islamic Risala Scout Association, which is affiliated to the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, according to the ministry.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. But dozens of paramedics and other emergency workers have been killed and injured since it intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah five weeks ago.

The military has previously accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters. The IHS has denied having ties to military operations.

There were also fresh Israeli strikes near Baalbek, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, a day after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the entire city and two neighbouring towns.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that a woman was killed in a strike in the Kayyal area.

Another six people were killed when a house was bombed in Maqna, which is 5km north-east of Baalbek but was not included in the evacuation zone, it said.

BBC
 
At least 11 more people killed in eastern Lebanon

Israeli air attack targeted a family home with about 20 people in it in the centre of eastern Lebanon’s Younine town, according to the country’s National News Agency (NNA).

Seven bodies have already been recovered, and the process of removing the rubble is still continuing, the report said.

About five kilometres (three miles) away, Israeli warplanes also hit a house in the village of Nahle, killing at least four people.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Israeli air strikes kill at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon while capital Beirut hit by more than 10 deadly Israeli air raids overnight.

At least 55 people were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.


Al Jazeera
 
Lebanon PM says Israel ‘rejecting efforts made to secure ceasefire’

Lebanon’s caretaker PM accused Israel of rejecting a ceasefire after the Israeli military bombed southern Beirut again.

PM Mikati, while condemning the attacks, said the renewed bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs and strikes on other areas “confirm the Israeli enemy’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire”.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

Missile strike on central Israel wounds 19​


A missile strike in Israel’s Sharon area wounded 19 people, police said early Saturday, after the army reported three projectiles were fired from Lebanon into central Israel.

All 19, four of whom were “in moderate condition,” were taken to hospitals for treatment, the Israeli police added.

Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency medical service earlier said that several people had been wounded in a strike on the central city of Tira, including “a male around 20 with shrapnel injuries.”

Hezbollah also said on Saturday it had launched rockets at an Israeli intelligence base near Tel Aviv in the early hours of Saturday.

At 2:30 a.m. (00:30 GMT) militants “fired a salvo of rockets at the Glilot base of the 8200 military intelligence unit in the suburbs of Tel Aviv” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

The Lebanese Hezbollah group after said it had targeted Israel's Palmachim Airbase in southern Tel Aviv on Saturday noon with drones.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the attack.

The militant group frequently claims to have fired rockets at Israeli bases or urban areas in Israeli territory, and has several times claimed the targeting of Glilot.

Videos posted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry on social media showed fire and smoke spilling from a building into the street and emergency responders swarming the site.

“This is the result of a direct hit of a Hezbollah rocket on a building in the Israeli Arab town of Tira, injuring 19 civilians,” the ministry said in the post.

“We cannot and will not rest until Hezbollah is dismantled,” it added.

The Israeli army said on Telegram that it had intercepted some of the three projectiles fired from Lebanon.

Tira, a predominantly Arab town, is located around 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of Tel Aviv, near the border with the occupied West Bank.

The war raging in the Gaza Strip has spread to Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out air strikes against Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian group Hamas.

According to Israeli figures, at least 63 people have been killed on the Israeli side since cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah erupted following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

On Thursday, rocket fire from Lebanon killed seven people in Metula, northern Israel, including four Thai farmers.

Hamas’s October attack on Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s response has killed 43,259 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are considered reliable by the United Nations.

 

Israeli forces land in Lebanese coastal town of Batroun, capture a man: Sources​


A suspected Israeli naval force landed in the northern Lebanese coastal town of Batroun early on Saturday and captured one person, a security source said, while another source confirmed the incident but did not say who was responsible.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli and Lebanese authorities.

Pro-Hezbollah journalist Hassan Illaik said in a post on X that a large group of Israeli troops made a landing in the resort town and captured the man, before departing on speed boats.

He shared CCTV footage appearing to show soldiers walking in a street, two of them holding a person.

Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamiye, who represents Hezbollah in Lebanon's government, said the video was accurate but did not provide further details.

 

Israel army issues new evacuation call for Lebanon’s Baalbek region​


The Israeli military on Sunday called for the evacuation of the Baalbek area in eastern Lebanon, warning that it was ready to strike Hezbollah targets there and in nearby Douris.

The latest evacuation call came as the military’s Home Front Command activated sirens at regular intervals along the border as dozens of projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory since Sunday morning.

“You are currently located near the facilities and assets associated with Hezbollah, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will be targeting in the near future,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X addressed to residents of Baalbek and Douris.

The Israeli air force intercepted several projectiles that were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory, while some fell in open areas, the military said in a statement.

On Thursday, rocket fire from Lebanon killed seven people in the town of Metula in northern Israel, including four Thai farmers.

Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have been locked in a deadly war since September 23 that has killed more than 1,900 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

Israel’s military says 38 soldiers have been killed in the Lebanon campaign since it began ground operations on September 30.

Clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants first erupted on October 8 last year when the Lebanese group began firing rockets into Israel in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s sweeping military response against Hamas has led to the deaths of 43,314 Palestinians in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations consider to be reliable.

 
At least three killed as Israel bombards southern and eastern Lebanon

At least three people have been killed in an Israeli air attack in southern Lebanon, and other strikes were reported in the country’s east as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border region.

“The Israeli enemy’s raid on Haret Saida resulted in an initial death toll of three people killed and nine others injured,” Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday, referring to a densely populated area near the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon.

Footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed the aftermath of the attack on a multi-story building in Haret Saida, showing a fire on the top floor and extensive destruction across all floors.

News agencies also reported an additional Israeli strike on the town of Ghaziyeh, south of Sidon. According to the AFP news agency, the strike hit a residential building, and a child was rescued from the rubble.

“Sidon has been struck multiple times – twice in the last few days, an indication of an escalation further north than the main theatre of operations for the Israelis further south,” said Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Beirut.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported other Israeli strikes near a hospital in Tebnin, a town in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon. The mayor of Tebnin said the hospital sustained significant damage. None of these strikes were preceded by evacuation warnings.


www.aljazeera.com

At least three killed as Israel bombards southern and eastern Lebanon

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits northern Israel near Lebanon border, vows to push Hezbollah back from frontier.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
Chaos and destruction as Israel strikes deep in Lebanon’s valley

At the wheel of an ambulance, Samir El Chekieh drives with sirens wailing to the latest Israeli air strike in El Karak in the Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon.

The 32-year-old firefighter and paramedic with the Lebanese Civil Defense Force (CDF) only got a few hours' sleep last night. It is now the middle of the afternoon and he still hasn’t had breakfast.

Since the escalation of the war between Israel and the Shia Muslim Hezbollah, the men and women of the CDF see little rest, and brace themselves for a mass casualty incident every day.

It is starkly different from the last war with Israel in 2006, Samir says. “We didn't have those kind of air strikes. Recently, a fire station was hit, and a church in the south, and our humanitarian colleagues have been killed.”

CDF workers say civilians, including women and children, are increasingly among the dead and injured when they attend a call out.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah is spreading deeper and wider across Lebanon.

An intense bombing campaign has broadened far beyond the country’s southern border villages and the capital Beirut, to towns in the fertile Bekaa and the historic city of Baalbek, principally Shia areas, where Hezbollah was founded. The port cities of Sidon and Tyre have also seen an increase in attacks.


www.bbc.com

Chaos and destruction as Israel strikes deep in Lebanon’s valley

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville spent two weeks with Lebanese Civil Defense Force crews in the Bekaa Valley.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 

Lebanese rescuers say 30 killed in Israeli strike on apartment building​


First responders have recovered the bodies of 30 people killed in an Israeli air strike on an apartment building south of Beirut, Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency says.

Tuesday evening’s attack destroyed one side of the four-storey building that was reportedly housing displaced people in the predominantly Sunni Muslim coastal town of Barja and sparked a fire.

The Lebanese health ministry gave a preliminary death toll of 20 late on Tuesday but warned the figure could rise.
The Israeli military said it struck “terror infrastructure” belonging to the Shia armed group Hezbollah.

Moussa Zahran, who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building, said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.

"These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg kid," he told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.

“I removed [the rocks] and... handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building... I thank God, glory be to Him, for this miracle.”

An Irish Times correspondent cited a member of the civil defence at the scene as saying that those killed whose bodies were found complete included seven women and three children - a seven-month-old baby and two girls aged seven and 12.

Neighbours also said the building was housing displaced people who had fled from other areas, she added.

There was no evacuation warning ahead of the strike, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday afternoon, Lebanese media reported new air strikes in the southern city of Nabatieh and Beirut’s southern suburbs. These came hours after the Israeli military ordered residents to evacuate areas around several buildings, warning them it was about to act against “facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah”.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said seven people were killed in a strike on the village of al-Ain, in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The Israeli military also said it had killed the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the southern border region of Khiam, and that a number of other Hezbollah fighters had been killed by air strikes and by troops operating inside southern Lebanon over the past day.

Meanwhile Hezbollah’s new secretary general, Naim Qassem, said in a speech that the group had “tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight and that nowhere in Israel was “beyond the reach of our drones and missiles”.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired about 120 rockets into northern and central Israel on Wednesday. There were no reports of injuries.

Local media said one rocket hit a car park near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, but the Israel Airport Authority said its operations were not affected. Hezbollah said it targeted the Tzrifin military base, which near the airport.

A large section of a rocket also hit a parked car in the town of Raanana, just north of Tel Aviv.

Since the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah six weeks ago, at least 2,400 people have been killed and more than 1.2 million displaced across Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israeli air strikes have eliminated most of the group’s leadership, including Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah, and caused widespread destruction in parts of southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs - areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of northern Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israeli authorities say more than 70 people have been killed by Hezbollah attacks in Israel and the occupied Golan Heights over the past year.

www.bbc.com

Lebanese rescuers say 30 killed in Israeli strike on apartments

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah “terror infrastructure” in the central town of Barja.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
At least 38 people killed in dozens of Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon

At least 38 people have been killed in multiple attacks around Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley as Israel ramps up strikes on eastern Lebanon, according to the regional governor.

Bachir Khodr, governor of the Baalbek Hermel governorate, said on Wednesday that about 40 Israeli strikes on the province killed 38 people and injured 54 others.

Meanwhile, at dusk, more Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. This came after the Israeli army issued forced evacuation warnings for three areas in southern Lebanon.

Israeli military spokesperson said on X that residents in the southern suburbs of Burj al-Barajneh, Laylaki and Haret Hreik must leave, adding, “You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, against which the [military] will act in the near future.”

An hour after the warnings, there were at least four Israeli strikes in the area. There was no immediate report on possible casualties and what was targeted.



www.aljazeera.com

At least 38 people killed in dozens of Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem says he does not think ‘political action’ will end the war with Israel.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
UNIFIL and Lebanese soldiers wounded, civilians killed in Israeli drone strike

Several cars were also destroyed in that drone strike that took place at the Awali checkpoint.

That’s crucial because when Israel issues its forced evacuation orders, oftentimes it says to the residents of those areas, go north of the Awali River, and now it is actually bombing that vital lifeline outside of the south.

Last night’s bombing was also a very serious incident for Lebanon and the government.

Only one airline, MEA, currently flies in and out of Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport.

Most other airlines have suspended operations and won’t return for a while.

Precisely for this reason, they were worried that the airport was going to get hit, because it does get hit, like I say, it gets shut down.

So this is a very serious incident. There was no word from the Israelis about what they were trying to target near their airport.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
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