At least 40 killed in Lebanon as Israeli troops battle Hezbollah
Beirut: At least 40 people were killed 24 hours in southern Lebanon after Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah positions amid ongoing clashes between Israeli forces and the militant group. The strikes come as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group, have reached their highest levels in years, exacerbated by the wider regional conflict triggered by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
An Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the Lebanese capital killed nine people on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The ministry says it is running DNA tests on remains to identify other possible victims in the attack early Thursday. There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit the building close to the United Nations headquarters, the Prime Minister’s office and Parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defence unit said seven of its members were killed. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Prior to the attack, the ministry said 55 people were killed and 156 others were wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Wednesday. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages. In response, Israel declared war on Hamas in Gaza, where over 41,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed, according to local health officials.
The World Health Organisation says that 28 health workers in Lebanon have been killed in the past day.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described a dire situation in treating casualties, with three dozen health facilities closed in southern Lebanon and five hospitals either partly or fully evacuated in Beirut. Tedros says health workers are not showing up at their jobs because they’ve fled areas that have been bombed.
Israel says an airstrike in Gaza killed a Palestinian convicted of killing soldiers
Israel claims an airstrike in Gaza has killed Abdel-Aziz Salha, a Palestinian convicted of killing two Israeli soldiers during the 2000 intifada. Salha, who was part of a mob that attacked the soldiers in Ramallah, was sentenced to life in prison but was released in a 2011 prisoner exchange. He was identified as a Hamas militant by the Israeli military, which reported his death in an overnight strike in Deir al-Balah. Salha was among more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas in Gaza. One of the other released prisoners, Yahya Sinwar, was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack and is now the top leader of Hamas.
Israel extends evacuation warnings north of the UN buffer zone in Lebanon
The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of villages and towns in southern Lebanon that are north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war. The warning issued Thursday signals a possible broadening of Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon, which until now has been confined to areas close to the border.
The frequent strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, as well as occasional strikes in central Beirut, have exacerbated Lebanon’s displacement crisis. The government has estimated that about 1 million people have been displaced in the cash-strapped country.
Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who is spearheading the government’s response to the war, told local media that some 167,000 Syrians left Lebanon in the past 24 hours. The Associated Press could not independently confirm this detail.
Lebanon says all border crossings with Syria function
Lebanon’s minister of public works and transport says all the country’s border crossing with Syria function under the supervision of state institutions.
Ali Hamie spoke to reporters hours after the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman posted on the social platform X that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has been trying to transport military equipment through the Masnaa border crossing with Syria.
“All border crossings, the first among them the Masnaa border crossing” are being monitored by state institutions including the transport ministry, customs authorities, the General Security Directorate and the Lebanese army.
Lebanese official says Israeli strikes that hit health facilities violate international law
Lebanese Health Ministry Firas Abiad says Israeli strikes that hit health facilities and workers are in “violation of international law and treaties.”
“This is a war crime, there is no doubt about that,” Abiad told reporters Thursday, after an overnight Israeli strike on an apartment building in Beirut hit a Hezbollah health centre and killed several civilian first responders affiliated with the group. There was also a separate strike that wounded Red Cross paramedics evacuating wounded people in southern Lebanon. “The argument that some vehicles or hospitals had weapons or something else in them, these are old false arguments and lies we heard before in Gaza,” Abiad said. “International laws are clear in protecting these people, I mean, paramedics. Who gave Israel the right to be the judge and the executioner at the same time?”
Hundreds of people arrive in Turkey from Lebanon
Hundreds of people leaving Lebanon have arrived in southern Turkey.
A ship carrying over 300 passengers who boarded the vessel in the Lebanese city of Tripoli docked at a port in Mersin on the country’s Mediterranean coast on Thursday, according to Turkish news agency IHA. IHA says the Med Lines ship was the third to arrive at the Mersin port carrying foreign nationals from Lebanon in recent days.
Israel says it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in Gaza three months ago
The Israeli military announced it killed senior Hamas leader Rawhi Mushtaha and two other commanders in an airstrike on an underground compound in northern Gaza approximately three months ago. The military claims the compound served as a command center and that Mushtaha was a close associate of Yahya Sinwar. Hamas has not commented on the report.
Biden says he does not expect Israel to retaliate against Iran President
Joe Biden says he doesn’t expect Israel to retaliate immediately against Iran and rejects the suggestion the US would grant permission for such an attack. “First of all, we don’t allow’ Israel, we advise Israel,” Biden said. “And nothing’s going to happen today.”
Biden was speaking to reporters Thursday, two days after Tehran bombarded Israel with almost 200 ballistic missiles. Iran said the barrage was in response to Israel’s recent assassination of Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
