New Israeli raids in Lebanon, Netanyahu wants to strike Hezbollah “without mercy”

Israel ledé new strikes Tuesday in eastern and southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue striking ” ;without mercy” the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement, its sworn enemy.

Early in the morning, the Israeli army launched several strikes in the Bekaa region, putting a hospital in the city out of service, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency (ANI). Raids also targeted villages in the south of the country.

Hezbollah, claiming to act in support of Hamas, opened a front against Israel from southern Lebanon on October 8, 2023, the day after the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

After nearly a year of clashes on the border and after having weakened Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli army moved the front of the war to Lebanon in September, carrying out intensive aerial bombardments on Hezbollah strongholds followed on September 30 by a ground offensive in the south of the country.

Objective: to push Hezbollah away from the border regions in southern Lebanon and to stop the rocket fire from this movement in order to allow the return to northern Israel of some 60,000 inhabitants moved.

Despite the heavy blows inflicted on Hezbollah, the movement has continued to fire on Israel and is engaged in fighting with Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

On Sunday, he carried out a drone attack on a military base in Binyamina, in northern Israel, which killed four soldiers and injured more than 60 according to rescuers, the deadliest attack by the movement on Israeli soil in nearly a month of escalation.

– “Without mercy” –

Funeral of a victim of an Israeli bombing in Maaysra, Mount Lebanon, on October 14, 2024 © AFP – ANWAR AMRO

“I want to be clear: we will continue to strike Hezbollah mercilessly in all parts of Lebanon, including Beirut,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the base.

On Monday, an Israeli strike killed 21 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, in the Christian village of Aito in northern Lebanon. The targeted building was razed.

This is the first time that this village has been the target of Israeli bombings, directed mostly against the regions where the Shiite Hezbollah is established, in the south and east of Lebanon as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Rescue workers evacuate a body from the rubble of a building targeted by an Israeli strike in the village of Aïto, in northern Lebanon, on October 14, 2024, against the backdrop of the war between Hezbollah and the Israeli army © AFP – Fathi AL-MASRI

Since the intensification of Israeli strikes in Lebanon on September 23, at least 1,315 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official figures. The UN has recorded nearly 700,000 displaced people.

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– No UNIFIL withdrawal –

UNIFIL vehicles on patrol in Marjeyoun, in southern Lebanon, October 11, 2024 © AFP – –

After the start of the ground offensive in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) is deployed, Mr. Netanyahu claimed that Hezbollah was using “UNIFIL installations and positions as cover to carry out its attacks” against Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, to put the peacekeepers “to safety immediately.”

“It was decided that UNIFIL would maintain all its positions despite Israeli appeals,” said the head of the peacekeepers, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, on Monday. This decision was approved by Mr. Guterres.

UNIFIL denounced “shocking violations” by Israel against its positions, reporting a “forceful” entry of two tanks into one of them on Sunday. The Israeli army said that one of its tanks had rammed a UNIFIL post while it was evacuating wounded soldiers.

Photo provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) showing a fire in the compound of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip after an Israeli strike, on October 14, 2024, against the backdrop of the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas © United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) – –

The war between Israel and Hezbollah and that between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, are coupled with an escalation between Iran and Israel, which threatens to retaliate to an Iranian missile attack on October 1.

– Strike the Iranian army –

According to Washington Post, Benjamin Netanyahu told his American ally that he was considering striking the Iranian military, not Iran's oil or nuclear infrastructure.

The United States announced Sunday the deployment of a high-altitude missile defense system in Israel, in the face of a possible attack from Iran.

In the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense announced that an airstrike on the city of Deir al-Balah (center) left four dead in the compound of the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, which is sheltering displaced people. The Israeli army said it carried out a strike on a Hamas “command center.”

UNIFIL vehicles on patrol in Marjeyoun, southern Lebanon, on October 11, 2024 © AFP – –

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages killed or killed in captivity in Gaza.

At least 42,289 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, in the Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

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