Wars 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War

[Saif]

182 killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 182 people and wounded more than 700 Monday, in the worst toll by far in nearly a year

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182 killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon
AFP
Beirut, Lebanon
Published: 23 Sep 2024, 20: 05

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon 23 September, 2024 Reuters

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 182 people and wounded more than 700 Monday, in the worst toll by far in nearly a year of cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel.

"Israeli enemy strikes on southern towns and villages since this morning" have killed "182 people and wounded 727 others", the health ministry said, with casualties including "children, women and paramedics".

War began when Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel, with Iran-backed groups around the region, chiefly Hezbollah, increasingly drawn into the violence.

On Monday, Israel said it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites with dozens of strikes, while Hezbollah said that it had targeted three sites in northern Israel.

The strikes on Lebanon, which also wounded more than 400 people according to the health ministry, were the deadliest in nearly a year of violence along the border with Israel.

"Enemy raids on southern towns and villages since this morning... killed 100 and injured more than 400," the health ministry said in a statement, adding that "children, women and paramedics" were among the dead and wounded.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply from Israel's southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon in recent days.

"We sleep and wake up to bombardment... That's what our life has become," said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the south Lebanon village of Zawtar.

More to come

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told people in Lebanon to avoid potential targets linked to Hezbollah as strikes would "go on for the near future".

Hagari said Israel's military "will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon".

He told civilians "to immediately move out of harm's way for their own safety".

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, says it is acting in its fight along Lebanon's southern border with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

In divided Lebanon, large parts of the south and east of the country, as well as the southern suburbs of capital city Beirut, are seen as strongholds of Hezbollah, where the group has historically wielded influence and built up services for its Shiite Muslim support base.

'Quickly evacuate'
Residents and local media said strikes also hit the outskirts of the coastal city Tyre.

NNA said Lebanese had received phone messages from Israel telling them "to quickly evacuate".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt "a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined", but Israeli leaders say they want their residents to return safely to border areas.

Hezbollah's deputy chief, Naim Qassem, said the group was in a "new phase, namely an open reckoning" with Israel, and ready for "all military possibilities".

Both were speaking after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused damage in the area of Haifa, a major city on Israel's north coast.

Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, on Monday outlined the goals of the military operation.

It seeks to "degrade threats" from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure built near the frontier by Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, the official said.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the UN and world powers to deter what he called Israel's "plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns".

'Wider war'
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel's main ally and weapons supplier, said his administration was "going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out".

An Israeli air strike in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold on Friday killed the Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other commanders and civilians.

That followed coordinated communications device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000. Hezbollah blamed Israel.

Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area with rockets as "an initial response" on Sunday.

On Monday the group said it had again rocketed the "Rafael defence industry complexes" near Haifa, as well as two military positions.

"No country can live like this," said Ofer Levy, 56, a customs officer, who lives on the edge of Haifa.

Hamas's 7-October attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,431 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.​

 

[Saif]

UN chief warns Lebanon on ‘brink’ as world leaders gather

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned world leaders on Tuesday that Lebanon was on ‘the brink’ as clashes escalated between Israel and Hezbollah...

www.newagebd.net

UN chief warns Lebanon on ‘brink’ as world leaders gather
Agence France-Presse . United Nations 24 September, 2024, 23:46

Antonio Guterres | AFP file photo

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned world leaders on Tuesday that Lebanon was on ‘the brink’ as clashes escalated between Israel and Hezbollah.

US president Joe Biden urged Israel and Hamas to finalise a months-old ceasefire proposal, telling the United Nations he was committed to ending the Gaza war.

‘Now is the time for the parties to finalise its terms,’ he said of the deal brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

The deal will ‘bring the hostages home and secure security for Israel and Gaza free from Hamas’s grip, ease the suffering in Gaza and end this war,’ Biden told the UN General Assembly.


The gathering of dozens of world leaders, the high point of the diplomatic calendar, comes as Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes killed 558 people — 50 of them children.

‘We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,’ Guterres said.

The annual flurry of speeches and face-to-face diplomacy kicked off as Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati headed to New York after UN Security Council member France called for an emergency meeting on the crisis.

As the toll in Lebanon climbed and focus shifted away from the situation in Gaza, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian condemned ‘senseless and incomprehensible’ inaction by the UN against Israel.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned ‘we are almost in a full-fledged war.’

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, again warned against a full-blown ground invasion of Lebanon, with a senior US official promising to bring ‘concrete’ ideas for de-escalation to the UN this week.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon as efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October 2023, have come to nothing.

Guterres cautioned against ‘the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza,’ calling the situation in the embattled Palestinian territory a ‘non-stop nightmare.’

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon hit back at the UN chief, calling the General Assembly debate an ‘annual charade of hypocrisy.’

‘When the UN secretary general speaks about the release of our hostages, the UN assembly is silent, but when he speaks about the suffering in Gaza, he receives thunderous applause,’ Danon said.

Since last year’s annual gathering, when Sudan’s civil war and Russia’s Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.

The October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel and the ensuing violence in the Middle East has exposed deep divisions in the global body.

Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think tank said he expected many leaders to ‘warn that the UN will become irrelevant globally if it cannot help make peace.’

With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expected to address the General Assembly this week, there could be combustible moments.

Abbas took his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation in alphabetical order for the first time after the delegation received upgraded privileges in the assembly in May.

On Tuesday, representatives of Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Algeria are slated to take the podium to press for a Gaza ceasefire after nearly one year of war.

‘The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable,’ Guterres said in his speech to the General Assembly, adding that ‘a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.’

Ukraine will also be on the agenda Tuesday when president Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a UN Security Council meeting on Russia’s war on Ukraine.

‘I invite all leaders and nations to continue supporting our joint efforts for a just and peaceful future,’ Zelensky told the UN on Monday.

‘Putin has stolen much already, but he will never steal the world’s future.’

It is unclear if the grand diplomatic gathering can achieve anything for the millions mired in conflict, poverty and climate crisis globally.

‘Any real diplomacy to reduce tensions will take place behind the scenes,’ Gowan said.

‘This may be an opportunity for Western and Arab diplomats to have some quiet conversations with the Iranians about the need to stop the regional situation spinning out of control.’

Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has called for an urgent meeting of Arab leaders on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly over the crisis in Lebanon.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanese take refuge in shelters after long trips fleeing Israeli bombing

Hundreds of families woke up Tuesday morning in a hospitality training institute turned shelter in the Bir Hassan area of Beirut's southern suburbs after arduous journeys from the country's south the day before

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Lebanese take refuge in shelters after long trips fleeing Israeli bombing
AFP
Beirut, Lebanon
Published: 24 Sep 2024, 22: 52

Rescuers rush to the scene of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Abbasiyeh on 24 September, 2024 AFP

Ali Berri never imagined it would take almost 14 hours to reach Beirut from his home in south Lebanon after he and his family decided to flee heavy Israeli air strikes.

It took "from 10:00 am until midnight -- the traffic was totally jammed", said Berri, 55, who fled with his wife, son and elderly neighbour from the Tyre area on Monday.

The trip would normally take a couple of hours at most.

"We hope that the war will ease so we can return to our homes because what me and my family went through yesterday is really war," he told AFP.

Hundreds of families woke up Tuesday morning in a hospitality training institute turned shelter in the Bir Hassan area of Beirut's southern suburbs after arduous journeys from the country's south the day before.

Israeli airstrikes began pounding south Lebanon on Monday morning, sending tens of thousands fleeing their homes, according to the United Nations, while Lebanese authorities said the death toll had soared to 558, including 50 children.

An AFP photographer saw hundreds of vehicles crawling along the highway that links southern Lebanon with the capital Beirut. Many carried families with children and the elderly, along with whatever belongings they could take.

Berri, a farmer and garbage truck driver, expressed hope that "associations, the state and anyone else" would help.

"There is real suffering," he said, putting aside a bag of bread and canned food for the family.

'A year of war'

Some people "spent the night on the streets, like my sisters and my wife's sisters", he added.

It was not the first he and his family have fled their homes, but this time was different, he said.

"I was displaced for around 20 days" in 2006 when Israel and Hezbollah last went to war, he said, "but that war was short, while now it is long."

Hezbollah has been trading near daily fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, but the violence has spiralled dramatically in the past week.

"We've had a year of war and we don't know now when it will end," Berri said.

The Bir Hassan institute is the largest of a number of educational facilities that have opened their doors in Beirut and its surroundings to receive the displaced.

AFP saw families spread across three floors of one of the institute's buildings, with people resting in some rooms, while one woman was busy cleaning dust off the ground.

Others sat near windows looking out over the building's courtyard, or in the corners of long dark corridors.

Many appeared exhausted and refused to speak to journalists.

"The bombing intensified on Monday... everyone was leaving," said Abbas Mohammed, a football coach from the southern village of Harouf, as his young daughter played nearby.

Hopes to return

"After they bombed a place nearby we decided to do the same thing and we had no choice except to get on the motorbike with my wife and daughter," he told AFP, adding that the trip took seven hours.

Dozens of meals and bottles of water began to arrive, with scouts and volunteers from the Amal movement, a Hezbollah ally, handing them out to families.

Rami Najem, an Amal media official who is also with the group's emergency committee, was watching as people registered the names and needs of the displaced.

"Around 6,000 people came to this centre between 6:00 pm last night and 6:00 am this morning," he told AFP.

The displaced, some of whom had simply gathered in the streets or squares, were being distributed across several centres and given mattresses, said Najem, adding that the needs were enormous.

He described "basic needs just so people can sit down and sleep -- like pillows, blankets, medicine, babies' milk, nappies, food and water".

Zeinab Diab, 32, from the Nabatiyeh area, said she fled with her husband and four children, the youngest of whom is under a year old, from the village of Ebba "for the children's sake".

"Almost all the village was damaged, we didn't know where the bombing was coming from. We feel as if they are more brutal this time," she said, referring to the Israeli military.

"I hope at this moment to return to my village even if my home is flattened. I'll live in a tent, it's better than being displaced," she said.

"When you leave your home, you feel as if you are leaving your soul."​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes kill nearly 500 in Lebanon

Israel's military said it launched airstrikes against Hezbollah sites in Lebanon on Monday, which Lebanese authorities said had killed 492 people

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Israeli airstrikes kill nearly 500 in Lebanon
Reuters
Jerusalem/Beirut
Published: 24 Sep 2024, 08: 59

Smokes rise, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on 23 September 2024. Reuters

Israel's military said it launched airstrikes against Hezbollah sites in Lebanon on Monday, which Lebanese authorities said had killed 492 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety in the country's deadliest day in decades.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since hostilities flared in October, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people.

"Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he said.

Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people, sometimes multiple generations in one vehicle. As bombs rained down, children crammed onto parents' laps and suitcases were tied to car roofs.

Highways north were gridlocked. "I grabbed all the important papers and we got out. Strikes all around us. It was terrifying," said Abed Afou, who was with his family, including three sons aged 6 to 13 and several other relatives. They sat in traffic as it crawled north.

They did not know where they would stay, he said, but just wanted to reach Beirut.

Some people escaped on foot. People carrying small bundles of belongings trekked northward on the beach near the Lebanese town of Tyre.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled "Israeli atrocities".

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran.

Israel's military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, east and north, including "launchers, command posts and terrorist infrastructure." The Israeli Air Force struck approximately 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.

Lebanon's health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The fighting has raised fears that the U.S., Israel's close ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war.

Saudi Arabia expressed deep concern on Monday and urged all parties to exercise restraint, state news agency SPA reported.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the United States does not support a cross-border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah and that Washington was going to discuss "concrete ideas" with allies and partners to prevent the war from broadening.

Israeli officials have said the recent uptick in airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon is designed to force the Iran-aligned group to agree to a diplomatic solution.

The U.S. official, briefing reporters in New York on condition of anonymity, pushed back on the Israeli position, saying the Biden administration was focused on "reducing tensions ... and breaking the cycle of strike-counterstrike."

Conflict 'peak'

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday marked a "significant peak" in the nearly year-long conflict.

"On this day we have taken out of order tens of thousands of rockets and precise munition. What Hezbollah has built over a period of 20 years since the second Lebanon War is in fact being destroyed by the IDF," he said in a statement, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

On Monday evening Israel launched a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs aimed at senior Hezbollah leader Ali Karaki, the head of the southern front. Hezbollah later said he was safe and had moved to a secure location.

But Hamas' armed wing said its field commander in southern Lebanon, Mahmoud al Nader, was killed in an Israeli air strike.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement that Israeli strikes had hit long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets, short-range rockets and explosive drones.

In response, Hezbollah said it launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel.

Sirens warning of Hezbollah rocket fire sounded across northern Israel, including in the port city of Haifa, and in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the military said.

About 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel because of the cross-border fighting. Gallant said the campaign would continue until the residents had returned to their homes. Hezbollah for its part has vowed to fight until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hagari said Hezbollah put weaponry "inside Lebanese villages and civilian homes, and intended to fire them toward civilians in Israel while endangering the Lebanese civilian population."

Hezbollah has not commented on the assertion that it has hidden weapons in houses, which Reuters could not independently verify, but it has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians.

The strikes have redoubled the pressure on the group, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The operation was widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed nor denied responsibility.

In New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

"It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict," he told journalists after his arrival in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Gents, Gaza is gone and now Israel is being demolished by Iran. If the US don't pull Iran onto its side by shoving trillions down their throat, Israel's history!

Barely 7 million Israeli's pitted against 200 million Shia's. US has no leadership nor diplomacy to try to resolve this situation.

You all know the outcome here. Iran's already told all the 200k Persian Jews in Israel to come back home ASAP.

What to do now?

@Vsdoc

 

[Vsdoc]

Gents, Gaza is gone and now Israel is being demolished by Iran. If the US don't pull Iran onto its side by shoving trillions down their throat, Israel's history!

Barely 7 million Israeli's pitted against 200 million Shia's. US has no leadership nor diplomacy to try to resolve this situation.

You all know the outcome here. Iran's already told all the 200k Persian Jews in Israel to come back home ASAP.

What to do now?

@Vsdoc

I think my reply on the other thread fits this one as well.

Issue is 200 million Shia still are outnumbered heavily by Sunni military powers in the ME itself. And I am not counting Pakistan here.

The Iranians know that the war against the Jews is just the precursor of the real war to come.

Payback for Al Qadisiya. Its hardwired into our DNA.

 

[Lulldapull]

I think my reply on the other thread fits this one as well.

Issue is 200 million Shia still are outnumbered heavily by Sunni military powers in the ME itself. And I am not counting Pakistan here.

The Iranians know that the war against the Jews is just the precursor of the real war to come.

Payback for Al Qadisiya. Its hardwired into our DNA.

What Qadisiya doc? The poor sunni are already decimated. They can’t breathe in da Sy-Raaq nor Lebanon nor Yemen. Sawdi Judea or the GCC can’t hold a candle to the power of Iran. Now these cunning irani’s have absolutely fukked Israel up big time just by moving their puppets.

This is becoming a joke. Pakistan bichara ghareeb is isolated. Turkey is bankrupt.

There ain’t nothing nor anybody left in front of Iran to control them.

US don’t wanna do jack shiit either and I totally understand their position. No American wanna die for jhoottay Semitic causes.

I hope Iran moderates itself and does not dismantle any more countries vurna bohot bura ho ga.

Millions of ghareeb will die for nothing. 90% irani’s are totally secular and they should moderate Irans imperialism ASAP.

That guy Immortal is in Tehran right now and he said it that nobody wearing hijab in Tehran or Isfahan or Shiraz or Tabriz…..morality police totally disbanded by this Pezeshkian implant.

Irani’s not religious at all bhai. These guys are all extreme Persian nationalists.

Chuunu munnu Israel they’re messing up just outta one upmanship/ arrogance.

The US has no leadership left to be able to pull Iran aside and award them the title of king of Middle East, annd put Israel under their protection, otherwise it’s pretty much already official.

 

[Saif]

Refrain from full-scale war

World leaders lined up at the United Nations on Tuesday to call on Israel to refrain from a full-scale war in Lebanon, with the organization’s chief warning the situation was on the “brink.”

www.thedailystar.net

Refrain from full-scale war
World leaders call on Israel at UN General Assembly

World leaders lined up at the United Nations on Tuesday to call on Israel to refrain from a full-scale war in Lebanon, with the organization's chief warning the situation was on the "brink."

The UN General Assembly, the high point of the international diplomatic calendar, comes after Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes had killed 558 people -- 50 of them children.

"Full-scale war is not in anyone's interest. Even though the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible," US President Joe Biden said in his farewell address to the global body.

Biden's remarks drew disappointment from Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib who said they were "not promising" and "would not solve the Lebanese problem," as he estimated that the number of people displaced by Israel's strikes has likely soared to reach half a million.

"We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said when he opened the gathering.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said his country was "not eager" for a ground invasion of Lebanon. "We don't want to send our boys to fight in a foreign country," he said.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon, with efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza -- which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October 2023 -- coming to nothing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of dragging the entire region "into war."

"Not only children but also the UN system is dying in Gaza," Erdogan said in a scathing speech.

European Council President Charles Michel said that Israel had the right to exist and defend itself but without inflicting "collective punishment" on civilians living in areas targeted by its military.

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran -- which backs Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza -- condemned "senseless and incomprehensible" inaction by the UN against Israel.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy also sounded the alarm over the escalating violence in Lebanon.

"I am very worried about the risk of escalation, and this breaking into a wider regional conflict," he told AFP as Britain announced it was deploying military units to Cyprus to assist with any evacuation of its citizens from Lebanon.

Responding to criticism of Israel, Danon called the General Assembly debate an "annual charade of hypocrisy."

Since last year's annual gathering, when Sudan's civil war and Russia's Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas took his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation, placed in alphabetical order in the General Assembly for the first time on Tuesday after the delegation received upgraded privileges in May.

At the rostrum, Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday ruled out the forced displacement by Israel of Palestinians to his country, which he said would be a "war crime."​