Photo: Bashar Taleb Agence France-Presse A Palestinian woman reacts in front of the bodies of those killed in an Israeli strike, at the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on November 17, 2024.
Published at 8:18 a.m.
Israel heavily bombed the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing dozens of people, and killed a Lebanese Hezbollah official in a targeted raid in Beirut, according to a security source.
Hezbollah media official Mohammad Afif, who has held press conferences in recent weeks, was killed in the raid while he was at the offices of the Syrian Baath party in a building in the Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood, the source said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the reports when contacted. Israel has decimated Hezbollah's leadership in recent months, killing its former leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, as well as several military and political leaders.
Fighting on two fronts, Israel says it wants to incapacitate Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, allies of its arch-enemy Iran. It vowed to destroy Hamas after the Islamist movement attacked its territory on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza, and is seeking to stop Hezbollah’s fire.
In the besieged and ravaged Palestinian territory of Gaza, at least 46 people have been killed in Israeli raids, according to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
The deadliest strike took place in the middle of the night in Beit Lahia (north). Twenty-six bodies were pulled from the rubble of a targeted five-story building, “including children and women,” and at least 59 people were trapped under the rubble, he said.
“We heard the Israeli strike and the whole area shook. I was at home with relatives and we all thought death was near,” Jaber Ghabayen, a relative of a family in the destroyed building, told AFP.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000According to According to AFP images, the building was transformed into a pile of ruins. Bodies wrapped in blankets were evacuated on a cart pulled by a donkey.
The Israeli army launched a major ground operation in northern Gaza on October 6, which it said was intended to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping there.
Twenty other Palestinians, including women and children, died in bombings in Rafah (south), Nousseirat and Al-Bureij (center), Bassal said.
Jihad Eid, who lost a nephew in the raid on a house in Al-Bureij, described the situation as “horrible.” “These were innocent children who were at home and who have nothing to do with what is happening.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip carried out an attack of unprecedented scale and violence in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or killed in captivity.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. In total, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
In response, the Israeli army launched a campaign of destructive aerial bombardments followed by a ground offensive in Gaza that left 43,846 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas Health Ministry weakened by Israel's blows.
A powerful armed movement accused by its detractors of constituting a “state within a state”, Hezbollah opened a front against the Israeli army in support of Hamas on October 8, 2023.
After a year of cross-border violence, Israel has shifted the main war front to Lebanon, launching an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah on September 23 and a ground offensive in the south of the country on September 30.
Israel wants to push the Lebanese movement away from the border regions of southern Lebanon and stop its rocket attacks that have displaced some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.
On Sunday, the Israeli army again bombarded the southern suburbs of Beirut near the international airport, after calling on residents to evacuate areas it said were close to “Hezbollah installations.” Strikes there destroyed a residential building near a church.
Hezbollah, for its part, fired about twenty projectiles towards Western Galilee and Haifa Bay in northern Israel, the army said. Some were intercepted.
More than 3,452 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, the majority since September 23.
The only faction to keep its weapons after the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), in the name of “resistance” against Israel, Hezbollah, created and financed by Iran, has established itself as an essential political force in Lebanon.
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