Israel launched new strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Monday, within hours of Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon where 100 aircraft targeted about 120 sites in the space of an hour, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Lebanese state media said two new strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday night, shortly after Israel’s military issued a warning to inhabitants of the area.
The deputy leader of Hizbullah has said that Israel’s ground mission into Lebanon had been a failure, and that the group’s military capabilities were intact, pledging its attacks would force more people in northern Israel from their homes.
Al Jazeera quoted Naim Qassem saying: “Our military capabilities are fine. What our enemies say about our fighting capabilities is an illusion. They are lying. Our fighters on the frontline are solid. What happened over the last 10 days is [that] the pain of the Israelis is increasing. We are telling them, more and more Israelis will be displaced from the settlements.”
Mr Qassem said in comments broadcast on Tuesday that his movement supports efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for the first time he omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting the group’s fire on Israel.
Hizbullah launched some 190 rockets at Israel, the IDF reported, adding most were targeting the north of the country. Late on Monday, Hizbullah said that it had launched a “barrage” of rockets at a military intelligence base on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Air raid alerts were activated across the centre of the country.
The IDF said “about five launches were detected that crossed from Lebanon, some of them were intercepted by the Air Force and the rest fell in an open area”.
Elsewhere, Israel’s military declared areas around a number of towns in northwest Israel as closed to the public on Monday. The IDF announced that a “new closed military zone” would be imposed along the border with Lebanon and would include the towns of Shlomi, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Arab al-Aramshe and Adamit.
A separate IDF statement warned Lebanese civilians to avoid being on the beach or on boats on the coast from the Awali river southward until further notice.
At least 1,400 Lebanese people including civilians, medics and Hizbullahf ighters have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes, Lebanese officials announced.
In southern Lebanon an Israeli strike late on Sunday killed at least 10 firefighters, the latest in a series of attacks that have killed dozens of first responders, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Ceremonies were held across Israel on Monday marking the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, vowed in a televised address to continue fighting to “thwart any future threat against the state of Israel”.
Families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza gathered near Mr Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence and stood during a two-minute siren, replicating a custom from Holocaust Remembrance and Memorial Day.
Demonstrations and memorials marking the anniversary of the October 7th attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza also took place across the world.
Out of 251 people taken hostage on October 7th, 2023, an estimated 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.
Joe Biden commemorated the anniversary of the October 7th attacks in Israel with a candle-lighting ceremony at the White House. The US president in a statement said Monday marked “the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust” and condemned the “vicious surge in anti-Semitism in America” since the attacks.
Mr Biden also spoke with Israel’s president, Yitzhak Herzog, on Monday. – Guardian