Israel has again bombed Hezbollah positions in Lebanon following the raids killed hundreds of people and prompted the exodus of thousands, fueling fears of a regional conflagration nearly a year after the war in Gaza began.
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What does the UN say about the war in Lebanon?
“Lebanon is on the brink of the abyss”launched the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, before the General Assembly of the organization, which opened in the midst of an escalation between Israel and the pro-Iranian Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas in Gaza.
“Gaza is a permanent nightmare that threatens to drag the entire region into chaos, starting with Lebanon”warned Guterres, who called for an “immediate” cessation of hostilities in the Palestinian territory.
A source close to Hezbollah announced the death of one of its commanders, Ibrahim Kobeisi, in an Israeli bombing that, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, killed six people and wounded 15 in the southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of the powerful Islamist group.
The Israeli army had indicated shortly before that “Air Force fighter jets eliminated on Tuesday in [el suburbio de] Dahieh to Ibrahim Mohamed Kobeisi, commander of the missile and rocket system of the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”
Israel claims responsibility for ‘massive bombings’ in Lebanon
Israel announced it had launched a new wave of “massive bombardments” against Hezbollah positions after reporting attacks on “dozens of targets” of the movement in southern Lebanon.
“We will continue to strike Hezbollah (…). And I say to the Lebanese people: our war is not against you, our war is against Hezbollah”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video released by his office.
Hezbollah said it had launched a total of 90 rockets at a military base near Safed, the headquarters of the Israeli army’s northern command.
The Islamist group had previously claimed responsibility for firing Fadi 2 missiles at Israel, which it said hit military positions near Haifa in the north of the country, including an “explosives factory” and the city of Kiryat Shmona.
In Haifa, schools, universities and businesses remained closed, a journalist from the AFP news agency said.
Artillery exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah are almost daily since the beginning, in October 2023, of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.
Monday’s unprecedented strikes targeted some 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in the north.
How many people have died in Lebanon?
At least 558 people were killed in these attacks, including 50 children and 94 women, and 1,835 people were injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry said Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese have fled bombed areas since Monday, the UN said, heading for Sidon, the largest city in the south, or Beirut.
On Tuesday, numerous cars were blocked on the road leading to the capital.
Lebanese schools and universities will remain closed until the weekend and many airlines have suspended their flights to Beirut and in some cases, such as British Airways, Delta and Lufthansa, to Tel Aviv.
“Day of terror” in Lebanon
“It was a day of terror,” Thuraya Harb, a 41-year-old Lebanese refugee near Beirut, told AFP after an eight-hour journey from the south. “I didn’t want to leave, but the children were scared and we left with only what we were wearing”he added.
The director of a health centre in Saksakiye, near Sidon, described scenes of horror.
Was “many dead: children, women, people with limbs, noses or hands torn off, with skulls broken” and people arriving “gutted,” described doctor Musa Yusef, stressing that “90% of the wounded” were “children.”
Israel said a few days ago that the centre of gravity of the war in Gaza was going to shift northwards, to allow people evacuated in the north of the country to return to their homes after the start of the clashes with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, for its part, promised to continue attacking Israel “until the end of the aggression in Gaza.”
Last week, two waves of beeper and walkie-talkie explosions blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.
On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on the southern outskirts of Beirut killed 16 members of the pro-Iranian movement’s elite force, including its leader, Ibrahim Aqil.
What did Joe Biden say about the war in Lebanon?
“A full-scale war is of no benefit to anyone. Although the situation has worsened, a diplomatic solution is still possible.”US President Joe Biden said in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
Iran’s new president, Masud Pezeshkian, told CNN that Hezbollah could not “stand alone” against Israel and, in a message on social network X, described the UN’s “inaction” towards Israel as “incomprehensible.”
The war in Gaza was triggered by an attack by Islamist Hamas commandos in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The raid left 1,205 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. This toll includes hostages killed or killed while in captivity in Gaza.
Of the 251 abducted during the Islamist incursion, 97 remain captive in Gaza, although 33 of them were declared dead by the Israeli army.
The Israeli offensive caused the deaths of at least 41,467 Palestiniansaccording to data from the Ministry of Health of this Hamas-ruled territory, considered reliable by the UN.
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Source: https://www.noticiascaracol.com/mundo/libano-esta-al-borde-del-abismo-onu-tras-ataques-de-israel-que-dejan-50-ninos-muertos-rg10
