Spread the love

Middle East War: Israel Maintains Pressure on Hezbollah, Hamas and the UN

Israeli bombings continue against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, but the Israeli army also attacked, once again, the forces of UNIFIL, a UN organization supposed to watch over the situation at the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The essentials

  • The exchange of bombings resumed this Monday, October 21 between Israel and Lebanon. The Israeli army indicated in a statement that it had struck dozens of command centers and “financial infrastructures of Hezbollah”, in particular subsidiaries of the financier linked to the Shiite party al-Qard al-Hassan. The strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa plain and southern Lebanon. Dozens of rockets were targeted in northern Israel from Lebanon according to IDF statements reported by the Haaretz newspaper.
  • Strikes are also continuing in the Gaza Strip. “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying. […] No place is safe in Gaza,” a UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process said in a statement relayed on X.
  • But Israel also continues to hit UN infrastructure, those belonging to UNIFIL, a detached force of Blue Helmets deployed on the Israeli-Lebanese border. A “bulldozer” The Israeli army has “deliberately demolished [an] observation tower and fence” at a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon on Sunday evening, according to a UNIFIL statement. “Despite the pressure on the mission […] peacekeepers remain stationed in all positions,” adds the UN force. 

Latest updates

08:43 – Israel attacks Hezbollah funding

Israel launched several strikes against Lebanon on the night of Sunday to Monday, and the bombings targeted dozens of Hezbollah command centers and “financial infrastructure,” according to the IDF statement. Among the targets is the subsidiary of al-Qard al-Hassan, a financial institution linked to the Shiite party. The strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa plain and southern Lebanon, Haaretz newspaper reports.

20/10/24- 17:29 – Israel vows legal action against France after Macron's decision on Euronaval air show

END OF LIVE – Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that his ministry would take legal action against France following Emmanuel Macron's decision to effectively ban companies from the Hebrew state from the Euronaval naval military exhibition. The exhibition will take place in early November in Villepinte. According to Challenge, the French authorities have authorized Israeli companies to participate on condition that the weapons they produce are not used in Gaza or Lebanon. A condition that excludes the vast majority of them, the media analyzes.

“This follows weeks of intensified operations that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians and the near-total absence of humanitarian aid for the populations of the north,” deplored Tor Wennesland, the United Nations special envoy for the Middle East peace process, in a statement relayed on X. He condemned the Israeli attacks on civilians following yesterday's bombing of the town of Beit Lahiya. “The nightmare Gaza is intensifying. No place is safe. Gaza."

10/20/24 – 4:37 p.m. – Sébastien Lecornu highlights the "disagreements" with “the way Israel wages its wars”

French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu on Sunday supported France's call for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, he said on RTL. The minister stressed “political and diplomatic disagreements with the way Israel conducts its wars”, but assures that the Hebrew state “is our ally”, thus distinguishing between Israel and the Israeli leadership.

20/10/24 – 15:48 – “Major salvo of rockets” fired by Hezbollah in northern Israel

Hezbollah announced that it had fired “a large salvo of rockets” at the Safed military base in northern Israel. The attack was a “response to attacks by the Israeli enemy on villages and homes” in Lebanon, the movement said on Telegram.

Le Parisien notes that the Israeli air force is trying to put out a fire caused by a rocket hit near Rosh Pina, a few kilometers from Safed.

20/10/24 – 14:30 – More than 5,000 Palestinians have fled Jabaliya

According to an Israeli army spokesman, “more than 5,000 Palestinians have fled the" region of Jabaliya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, "&today". In a post on X, Avichay Adraee illustrated his point with a photo showing debris and dozens of people carrying their belongings.

&As of mid-October, the UN had counted nearly 700,000 displaced people, recalls Le Parisien.

READ MORE

42,500. This is the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas terrorist offensive on October 7, 2023 in Israel. A figure communicated by the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government, on Monday, October 14, 2024, which reveals the intensity of the fighting that has now lasted for more than a year. Over the months, tensions have intensified, and as of October 27, 2023, Israel extended its ground operation to Gaza. The goal for Netanyahu and the IDF is clear: to “annihilate” Hamas. A week-long ceasefire was nevertheless in place in November 2023. After a major leap forward, on April 13, 2024, Iran launched its first massive attack on Israel. Allied to Hamas, Iran then fired nearly 350 explosive drones and missiles at the Hebrew state. An attack in response to missiles fired at the embassy in Damascus in Syria on April 1, in which 11 people lost their lives, including seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, a new type of attack broke into the war. Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded. Twelve dead and nearly 3,000 injured were reported in Lebanon. Since its coordinated explosions, Israel has continued to strike Lebanon with air and ground raids. More than 1,000 people were killed in IDF strikes and thousands of Lebanese were forced to be displaced. On October 1, 2024, Iran responded by sending nearly 200 ballistic missiles directly to Israel. Since then, the two countries have been engaged in a merciless war, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatening on October 8, 2024 that Lebanon would experience “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza” if the country's population did not “free itself” from Hezbollah. Remarks described as “provocation” by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-NoĂ«l Barrot.

On Monday, October 14, 2024, the Lebanese Hezbollah threatened Israel with new attacks in a press release. As a reminder, Hezbollah had struck Haifa two days earlier, killing four Israeli soldiers and injuring no fewer than 60. At the beginning of the week, the terrorist organization indicated that “the resistance (…) promises the enemy”. The raid carried out “south of Haifa is only a foretaste of what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our people”, it threatens. According to Palestinian doctors quoted by the Associated Press, the courtyard of a hospital in the Gaza Strip was then shelled by the Israeli army, killing at least four people and setting fire to a camp for displaced people.

Teilor Stone

By Teilor Stone

Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116