War Archive 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War

[Saif]

Israel strikes Hezbollah bastion in south Beirut

Lebanese state media reported on Wednesday a third wave of Israeli raids on Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion in 24 hours, after the health ministry said another strike south of the capital killed six people...

www.newagebd.net

Israel strikes Hezbollah bastion in south Beirut
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 14 November, 2024, 04:12

Lebanese state media reported on Wednesday a third wave of Israeli raids on Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion in 24 hours, after the health ministry said another strike south of the capital killed six people.

‘Enemy aircraft targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs’, the official National News Agency said, reporting six strikes.

AFP TV footage showed plumes of black smoke rising over the area following the strikes, about an hour after Israel’s army issued evacuation warnings.

People hastily drove away from the area following the evacuation calls, with residents firing gunshots in the air to warn civilians to flee, an AFP photographer said.

Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli strike on Aramoun south of Beirut killed six people, Lebanon’s health ministry said giving a preliminary toll for the attack on the densely-packed area which is located outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.

‘Body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified,’ it added, after the NNA said the strike targeted a residential apartment at dawn.

An AFP photographer saw rescuers pulling bodies out of the rubble in Aramoun, where the four-storey building had partially collapsed.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian group allied with Hamas released a video on Wednesday of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7 attack.

In the video, a bearded man identifying himself as Sasha Trupanov spoke in Hebrew about Israeli military operations in Lebanon, and called on Israelis to put pressure on the government to secure the release of hostages.

Trupanov, who stated in the video he was 28 and who recently turned 29, is a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was abducted with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza Strip.

Trupanov’s mother, grandmother and girlfriend, also abducted during Hamas’s October 7 attack, were among those released during a week-long truce in November 2024 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Trupanov’s father, Vitaly, was killed during the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history.

‘I am relieved to see my son alive, but I am very worried to hear what he is saying,’ Trupanov’s mother, Lena, said in a statement published by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group.

‘I urge that every effort be made to secure his immediate release and that of all other hostages. They have no time left,’ she added.

This is the third video of Trupanov published by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Qatar announced on Saturday it would end its mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas after months of fruitless negotiations.

When Hamas militants staged the October 7 attack, they took 251 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Some were already dead.

Of those, 97 are still held hostage, while 34 are confirmed dead but their bodies remain in Gaza.

The war in Gaza erupted with the attack, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,665 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Israel hits 30 targets in south Beirut

The Israeli military on Thursday said it struck around 30 targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, over the past 48 hours...

www.newagebd.net

Israel hits 30 targets in south Beirut
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 15 November, 2024, 00:19

A man walks amid the destruction in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the neighbourhood of Rweiss in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday. Israel’s air force ‘carried out a heavy strike on the southern suburbs targeting the Haret Hreik-Rueis’ area following a series of at least seven Israeli strikes since Wednesday. | AFP photo

The Israeli military on Thursday said it struck around 30 targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, over the past 48 hours.

‘Over the past two days, approximately 30 terror targets were struck in the Dahieh area in Beirut. These strikes were a part of the IDF’s on-going efforts to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities,’ the military said in a statement, weeks after it began on September 23 escalating air raids against the group.

Shortly before the strike, Israel had issued a warning to residents to evacuate their homes.

‘You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests against which the Israeli military will operate in the near future,’ army spokesman Avichay Adraee said.

His post on X included a map identifying buildings in the Shouaifat al-Omrousiya and Ghobeiry areas.

Israel carried out two strikes on Ghobeiry and a large one on Shouaifat al-Omrousiya, which lies on the southern outskirts of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.

NNA also reported heavy Israeli bombardment of the southern town of Bint Jbeil on Thursday.

Several blocks of flats in the town barely three kilometres from the Israeli border were destroyed by air strikes or shelling, it said.

Meanwhile, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that at least 43,736 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 103,370 people have also been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Earlier on Thursday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 10 people were killed in ‘several air strikes’ by the Israeli army on the Palestinian territory.

The agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that ‘around 30 people, all civilians’ were wounded in the strikes in Gaza City, the northern town of Jabalia and the southern city of Rafah.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes pound south, central Beirut

An Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of central Beirut yesterday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

www.thedailystar.net

Israeli strikes pound south, central Beirut
Hezbollah media head killed; new salvo of projectiles fired from Lebanon at Israel’s Haifa area

An Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of central Beirut yesterday killed Hezbollah's media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from Reuters. There was no evacuation order for the area published on the Israeli military spokesperson's account on social media platform X before the strike.

The strike hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood where many people displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs by the Israeli bombardment had been seeking refuge.

The security sources said it struck a building where the offices of the Ba'ath Party are located, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif was in the building.

The broadcaster later also said Afif had been killed.

Earlier, the Israeli air strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut yesterday, AFPTV images showed, shortly after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate the area.

Columns of smoke were seen rising over the capital's southern suburbs, where Lebanon's only international airport is located. Further south, Israeli air strikes and shelling hit the flashpoint town of Khiam, the NNA reported.

Following the bombardment, the Israeli army said about 20 projectiles were seen crossing from Lebanon into Israel, and that some of them were intercepted at Haifa Bay.

Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent in ground troops, following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants in support of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strike on Beirut kills Hezbollah media head, security sources say

An Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. The Israeli military declined to comment in respo

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli strike on Beirut kills Hezbollah media head, security sources say
REUTERS
Published :
Nov 17, 2024 19:07
Updated :
Nov 17, 2024 19:07

The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Mohammad Afif, attends a media gathering protesting against Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 14, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/Files

An Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from Reuters. There was no evacuation order for the area published on the Israeli military spokesperson’s account on social media platform X before the strike.

The strike hit the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood where many people displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs by the Israeli bombardment had been seeking refuge.

The security sources said it struck a building where the offices of the Ba’ath Party are located, and the head of the party in Lebanon, Ali Hijazi, told Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed that Afif was in the building.

The broadcaster later also said Afif had been killed. It showed footage of a building whose upper floors had collapsed onto the first storey, with civil defence workers at the scene.

Afif was a long-time media advisor to Hezbollah’s former secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sept 27.

He managed Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station for several years before taking over the Iran-backed group’s media relations office.

Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire for more than a year, since Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israeli military targets on Oct 8, 2023, a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas carried out a deadly attack on southern Israel.

In late September, Israel dramatically escalated and expanded its military campaign in Lebanon, heavily bombing the country’s south, east and the southern suburbs of Beirut alongside ground incursions along the border.

Afif hosted several press conferences for journalists amid the rubble in the southern suburbs of the capital. In his most recent comments to reporters on Nov 11, he said Israeli troops had been unable to occupy any territory in Lebanon and Hezbollah had enough weapons and supplies to fight a “long war”.

The Lebanese health ministry said the strike killed one and injured three.

Ambulances could be heard rushing to the scene, and bursts of gunfire rang out to prevent crowds of people from approaching the location.​

 

[Saif]

Over 200 children killed in Lebanon in 2 months: Unicef

Over 200 children have been killed and 1,100 injured in Lebanon in the past two months, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency (Unicef) said yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Over 200 children killed in Lebanon in 2 months: Unicef
US envoy says end to Israel-Hezbollah war ‘within our grasp’

Over 200 children have been killed and 1,100 injured in Lebanon in the past two months, a spokesperson for the UN children's agency (Unicef) said yesterday.

"The number of over 200 (children killed) is just in the last two months. It's at least 231 since the start of the war last year," James Elder told a Geneva press briefing in response to a reporter's question about casualties.

He did not comment on who was responsible for the killings, saying that it was clear to anyone who follows the media.

Meanwhile, US envoy Amos Hochstein landed in Beirut yesterday for talks with officials on a truce between armed group Hezbollah and Israel. Both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah have agreed to the US ceasefire proposal that was submitted in writing last week.

There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Hochstein spoke in Beirut following talks with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. "This is a moment of decision-making. I am here in Beirut to facilitate that decision but it's ultimately the decision of the parties to reach a conclusion to this conflict," he said.

"It is now within our grasp... As the window is now, I hope the coming days yield a resolute decision," he added.

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, Naim Qassem, has postponed a speech set for yesterday to a later time, Hezbollah's media office said.

The speech had been announced minutes after Hochstein said there was a "real opportunity" to end the conflict.

The Israeli military said yesterday that some 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into central and northern Israel, with first responders reporting that four people were slightly injured by shrapnel.

That announcement followed earlier reports that some 15 projectiles fired that set of air raid sirens.

The Israeli police said they were searching the impact sites from projectiles intercepted by Israel's air defence systems but did not report any serious damage.​