Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon continues, with Hezbollah announcing yesterday the death of a senior official in a strike in a southern suburb of Beirut, as the international community tries to prevent the threatened ignition of the entire region.
Earlier, the Israeli armed forces reported that “air force fighter jets eliminated Ibrahim Mohamed Qubaisi, the commander of the rocket and missile network of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, yesterday in Beirut.” According to the Israeli army, “at least two” other commanders of the units coordinated by Ibrahim Koubaisi were killed in this strike, which, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, left at least 6 dead and 15 wounded.
Hezbollah confirmed the death of “Commander Ibrahim Mohammed Qubaisi,” who was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem,” the expression the movement generally uses when referring to those killed by Israeli fire.
Earlier today, Israel’s air force struck a “warehouse” in Saadiyat, a coastal town about 20 kilometers south of the capital, an AFP source in the Lebanese security forces said.
Israel unleashed its most widespread wave of air strikes against Hezbollah targets, with Lebanese authorities saying children, women and medical workers were among hundreds dead, as the two sides move closer to all-out war pic.twitter.com/LZN4hq0eVm
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 23, 2024
500,000 displaced
The deadly bombings of the past few days have brought hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens to the streets, fleeing the south in every direction. The displaced are now approaching 500,000, the country’s foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, said yesterday at an event organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
On Monday, the heaviest shelling launched by Israel since October 8, 2023 swept through southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least 558 people, including 50 children and 94 women, and injuring 1,835 others, according to Lebanese health officials. authorities. This is the heaviest death toll in one day since the end of the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990).
Zeinab Diab, 32, who took refuge like hundreds of other families in a school converted into a reception and accommodation center for internally displaced persons near the capital, told how her village, near the border, which she left with her husband and four children , “practically destroyed.” “We didn’t even know where the shelling was coming from. It’s like this time there’s even more brutality.”
Schools and universities will remain closed until the end of the week in Lebanese territory. Many airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut.
Global concern
Concern over the rapid escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, dominated the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting today Wednesday at 18:00 (New York time at 01:00 tomorrow Thursday Greek time), to discuss the escalation of the crisis, at the request of France.
OR Britain announced late on Tuesday night that it is sending around 700 of its military personnel to Cyprus, to prepare possible operations to quickly remove UK nationals from Lebanon.
On the floor of the General Assembly, Mr Joe Biden warned against “all-out war” in Lebanon and said it was time to “finalize now” a cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli government and Hamas.
Other leaders condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon. THE Emir of QatarSheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, referring to the war in the besieged small Palestinian enclave of 2.4 million people, spoke of the “crime of genocide”.
THE Iranian President Massoud Pezheskian met on Tuesday night with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who called on him to advocate “general de-escalation” in the Middle East, on the sidelines of the General Assembly. Earlier, through X, he called the UN’s “inaction” against Israel “incomprehensible” and emphasized to CNN that Hezbollah cannot be “left alone” in the conflict with Israel.
After Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Lebanon has now become an “active front”, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said during an interview with AFP, speaking of ” triple tragedy”.
‘There is a constant sound of jets and rockets, leading to a massive displacement of Lebanese people,’ says special correspondent @AlexCrawfordSkyhighlighting that many don’t feel Israel «isn’t waging war on Lebanon right now.»https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/Z30yUmX0iL
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 24, 2024
Netanyahu insists
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah. And I say to the people of Lebanon: our war is not against you, it is with Hezbollah,” assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video released by his services.
Israel has “no desire” to invade the territory of Lebanon, it would prefer a diplomatic solution to end its conflict with Hezbollah, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, offered, reminding that the purpose of the operations is to return in their homes the tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel who have been forced to leave them because of the practically daily exchanges of fire that are going to close time.
Source: APE-MPE, AFP
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