Netanyahu on the border with Lebanon, intense raids on Hezbollah strongholds

Photo: Agence France-Presse Smoke rises from the Israeli village of Metullah, targeted by rockets fired from the Lebanese side of the border on November 3, 2024.

Hachem Osseiran – Agence France-Presse and Cyril Julien – Agence France-Presse

Published at 10:49 Updated at 11:57

• Middle East

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border with Lebanon on Sunday, where his army stepped up deadly strikes on strongholds of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah, its sworn enemy.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens were activated after neighboring Lebanon fired about a hundred projectiles toward Israeli territory, the army said, reporting the interception of some and the landing of others on vacant land.

On its southern border, Israel continued its war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the attack carried out on October 7, 2023 by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil. The day after the attack and in support of Hamas, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel, which degenerated into open war last September.

A few days before the presidential election on November 5 in the United States, Israel’s main ally, and despite international pressure, attempts to end hostilities in Gaza and Lebanon have remained in vain.

On Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to neutralize Hamas and Hezbollah, two movements allied with Iran, went to the Lebanese border, according to a statement from his office without further details.

His last visit to the Israeli-Lebanese border was on October 6.

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Hospital damaged

At the same time, his army carried out a series of airstrikes against several sectors of southern Lebanon — Tyre, Tebnine, Haret Saïda, Ghaziyeh in particular.

At least three people died in Haret Saida, according to Lebanese authorities. In Ghaziyeh, a residential building was hit and a child was pulled alive from the rubble.

The area around the public hospital in Tebnine was hit and the facility is at risk of being out of service due to the extent of the damage, according to the mayor, Nabil Fawaz.

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In Khiam, about six km from the Israeli border, the Lebanese Red Cross recovered five bodies from 21 trapped under the rubble for a week, according to the official Ani news agency.

In this locality, fierce fighting is pitting Hezbollah against Israeli troops, engaged since September 30 in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

For its part, the Israeli army claimed to have killed several Hezbollah fighters.

In eastern Lebanon, Israel launched a new call to evacuate, in particular, the village of Douris, located a few kilometers south of the thousand-year-old city of Baalbeck.

Shortly afterwards, strikes targeted the region, with the Ani agency reporting the destruction of a café-restaurant.

Offensive in Jabalia

Since September 23, Israeli forces have intensified their strikes against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, saying they want to neutralize this movement in the border regions and prevent rocket fire to allow the return of 60,000 displaced people in northern Israel.

At least 1,930 people have been killed since September 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said it had killed Raafat Qodeih, a member of Hamas’s Noukhba unit that Israel said had infiltrated Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023 attack, where some 30 residents were killed and more than 70 taken hostage and taken to Gaza.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the attack, which left 1,206 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or killed in captivity. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the army.

The Israeli army launched a devastating offensive in Gaza in retaliation that left 43,341 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry, and caused colossal destruction and a humanitarian disaster.

Since October 6, the Israeli army has concentrated its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, claiming that Hamas is gathering its forces there. It claimed to have “eliminated dozens of terrorists” in Jabalia in the last 24 hours.