Photo: Nidal Solh Agence France-Presse An Israeli strike on Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon on Monday left six people dead, including a child, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.
Lisa Golden – Agence France-Presse and Cyril Julien – Agence France-Presse respectively in Beirut and Jerusalem
Posted at 3:33 PM Updated at 7:03 PM
- United States
The Israeli military announced on Monday that it had struck about 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in 24 hours, after expanding its offensive against the pro-Iranian group to target its financial system, with the United States saying it was working to end the war in the country “as soon as possible.”
In the evening, strikes near Hariri Hospital, the country's largest public facility, in southern Beirut, left at least four dead and 24 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The ministry had previously reported six people killed, including a child, in Baalbeck, in the east, and four Hezbollah-linked medics killed in the south in 24 hours in Israeli raids.
The Israeli army said it had targeted a bunker of the Islamist group containing “tens of millions of dollars” in a “series of precision strikes against Hezbollah's financial interests.”
Earlier, it had said it had struck nearly 30 targets linked to the financial organization Al-Qard al-Hassan, which is close to Hezbollah, against which it began strikes on Sunday across Lebanon.
The Lebanese Islamist group claimed responsibility for rocket fire on a Israeli intelligence base in the “Tel Aviv suburbs.”
Blinken in Israel on Tuesday
On a visit to Beirut, US envoy Amos Hochstein said Washington was working to resolve the conflict “as soon as possible,” based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
The resolution stipulates that non-state armed forces must withdraw from southern Lebanon, where only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army should be deployed.
Hezbollah has since maintained a presence in the region. Israel — in parallel with its war against the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip — began a ground offensive there on September 30, a week after launching massive airstrikes targeting the Lebanese formation.
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In this context, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is to begin a new tour of the Middle East on Tuesday in Israel, to try to revive talks for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where a war is pitting the Israeli army against Hamas, and to contain the regional escalation, while Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran's missile attack on its soil on October 1.
In Washington, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the new US missile defense system announced last week was now “in place” in Israel.
“Considerable damage”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Monday condemned the “considerate damage to civilian facilities” caused by Israeli raids targeting the Al-Qard al-Hassan group overnight.
Subject to US sanctions, Al-Qard al-Hassan is a financial institution that provides microcredit, part of Hezbollah’s network of associations, schools and hospitals in its suburban strongholds. south of Beirut, south and east of Lebanon.
The army is also continuing its ground operations in southern Lebanon, from which it wants to push Hezbollah back to allow the return of around 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by its incessant rocket fire over the past year.
At least 1,489 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official data. In mid-October, the UN counted nearly 700,000 displaced people.
An Israeli strike targeting a car also left two dead in Damascus, the Syrian Defense Ministry said. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a ceremony was being held nearby in memory of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip on October 16.
Photo: Louai Beshara Agence France-Presse Syrian rescue workers inspect the wreckage of a car after an Israeli strike in Damascus on Monday.
Fleeing “without taking anything”
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has been continuing a devastating offensive against Hamas in the Jabalia sector in the north since October 6.
Four Palestinians were killed in bombings on Monday, according to the Civil Defense.
Tens of thousands of Gazans have fled the area, where around 400,000 people were trapped last week, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
“There were smoke bombs and stun grenades, we fled with our children without taking anything,” Shaima Naseer, a 30-year-old refugee in Gaza City, told AFP, her nine-month-old daughter in her arms.
On the other side of the border, several hundred Israeli far-right activists, including MPs and ministers, demonstrated for the return of Jewish settlers to the ravaged Palestinian territory.
Hamas, in power since 2007 in Gaza, said it would continue to fight despite the death of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Palestinian Islamist movement will be temporarily led by a committee based in Qatar, before the election of a successor, reported two sources within Hamas on Monday.
The October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or who died in captivity.
Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
At least 42,603 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.