Israel-Hezbollah conflict: 700 dead in Lebanon as strikes continue – National
More than 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Israel has dramatically increased its strikes, targeting Hezbollah military forces and Hezbollah’s top commanders.
The Minister of Health in Lebanon Firass Abiad told the media that 25 people have been killed by Israeli planes since midnight in different parts of the country.
Senior Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if Hezbollah continues to fire on Israel, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7 will be repeated in Lebanon.
The International Organization for Migration estimated on Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it invaded Israel, sparking a war between Israel and Hamas.
Lebanon says 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time.
The United States, France and other allies have jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the country welcomes efforts to end the fighting, and condemned the “systematic destruction of villages on the Lebanese border.”
Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles towards the country’s northern border with Lebanon, and the administration has issued an invitation to call up the army. Netanyahu says Israel is hitting Hezbollah with “full force” and will not stop until its goals are achieved.
An Israeli security official said that he expects that a possible war against Hezbollah will not last long as there is a conflict in Gaza because the goals of the Israeli army are very small.
The official said that Israel has vowed to dismantle the Hamas military and political regime in Gaza, but the objective in Lebanon is to push Hezbollah away from Israel’s border. That is “not as high a barrier as Gaza” for operational purposes, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with military briefing guidelines.
The official said that no decision has been made on whether Israel will carry out ground operations in southern Lebanon. But he emphasized that the soldiers are trained for this possibility every day and are ready to use it.
He added that Israel still sees Resolution 1701, the United Nations resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, as the best solution for lasting stability. But this decision must be enforced by an international force that can prevent Hezbollah from setting up infrastructure near the Israeli border.
He said this week’s punitive Israeli airstrikes, which killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, represented Israel’s decision to begin enforcing the decision on its own.
Israeli strike inside Gaza hospital
An Israeli airstrike hit a tent sheltering homeless people at a hospital in central Gaza early Friday morning, killing a Palestinian man and injuring four others.
The strike at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah left other tents and safes torn apart with items such as bottles, mattresses and baby chairs scattered on the dirt floor.
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An Israeli military spokesman told the Associated Press that it was “a direct strike against Islamic Jihad terrorists who were operating inside control centers and control points in Deir al Balah.”
A spokesman said measures had been taken to “reduce the risk of personal injury.” The military did not comment on whether soldiers were killed in the strike.
Video captured by the Associated Press shows several children surrounding metal parts of a guided missile labeled “United States Army manufacturer” near a hospital where hundreds of homeless people are being sheltered.
Houthi rebels say they attacked Israel
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they attacked Israel early Friday.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, said the attack was in a pre-recorded statement released by the Houthis. He said the rebels fired a missile and a drone. The missile was aimed at Tel Aviv while the drone was targeting another city, although Israel has not acknowledged the drone. No injuries were reported.
The UN refugee agency says “more than 30,000” people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria in the past 72 hours after fighting between the terrorist group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative of the refugee organization UNHCR in Syria, said that almost half of the refugees are children and young people.
He said about 80 percent are Syrians returning to their country and the rest are Lebanese.
“Now these are, of course, people fleeing the bombs and falling into a country that for 13 years has been suffering from its problems and violence,” he told reporters in Geneva via video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing “economic collapse,” he said.
“I think this shows the kind of very difficult choices that the Syrians and the Lebanese have to make,” he said.
An Israeli airstrike in a border area killed nine members of a family, the National News Agency in Lebanon said on Friday.
NNA said nine people died in Friday’s airstrike in Chebaa village which destroyed their three-storey building.
Chebaa is located where the borders of Syria, Israel and Lebanon meet, and has been attacked several times in recent months.
On Friday, Israeli warplanes raided towns and villages in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to NNA.
Israel reports more strikes from Lebanon
Incoming fire from Lebanon into Israel continued on Friday, with one man injured by explosives.
The Israeli military said four drones crossed the border on Friday, all of which were intercepted.
Earlier on Friday, the Israeli military said that 10 more projectiles arrived in Israel from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted and others fell into the fields.
It later headed to Lebanon after the missile attack.
Hezbollah says it was targeting the Israeli city of Tiberias with missiles.
An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military base in Syria’s Kfar Yabous area near the Lebanese border killed five Syrian army soldiers and wounded another, Syrian news agency SANA reported on Friday, citing an unidentified military official.
The Israeli army did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel routinely targets military bases in Syria and facilities linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah but rarely admits it.
