By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa NNA, The Muslim News):
LEBANON
Israeli warplanes launched on Monday evening a series of airstrikes on towns in southern Lebanon, despite the ongoing cessation [cease-fire] of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s state news agency, NNA, reported that Israeli air force targeted the towns of Yaroun, Maroun al-Ras, and Hanine in the Bint Jbeil region, as well as the town of Sriri in the Jezzine district. Also, Israeli reconnaissance drones flew over the city of Tyre and its surroundings.
The agency added that Israeli soldiers stationed in Maroun al-Ras opened heavy fire on the nearby city of Bint Jbeil and the towns of Aainata and Aitaroun.
A Lebanese citizen was killed on Monday in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a motorcycle in the town of Jadida Marjayoun, in southern Lebanon.
This attack is part of continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement, with ongoing airstrikes and artillery shelling hitting multiple areas in southern Lebanon, leading to casualties, injuries and damage across several towns and regions.
The Lebanese Army reported on X that an Israeli drone targeted a bulldozer belonging to the Lebanese Army while it was conducting fortification work at the Al-Abbara military base in Hosh al-Sayyid Ali, Al-Hermel. The attack left one Lebanese soldier with moderate injuries.
The Lebanese National News Agency reported several injuries from an Israeli airstrike on the town of Talloussah. In addition, Israeli artillery shelled the towns of Shebaa, Beit Lif, and Yaroun.
Israeli bulldozers also demolished a mosque in the town of Maroun El-Ras, situated on a hill overlooking Bint Jbeil.
Last Wednesday, a cease-fire agreement between Lebanon and Israel took effect, meant to end over 14 months of fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah.
However, Israel has violated the cease-fire multiple times, conducting attacks in Lebanese territory that have resulted in casualties.
In response, Hezbollah targeted the Israeli site of Rweisat al-Alam in the Kfar Shuba hills Hills, calling it a “preliminary defensive warning” against Israel’s continued violations of the cease-fire agreement.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah says it has fired “defensive” warning shots at the Israeli army, in response to ceasefire “violations” by Israeli army that killed and wounded civilians.
Two people were killed and an army soldier was injured in three Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Monday despite a cease-fire deal between the two countries, local media said.
An Israeli drone fired two missiles into a motorcycle in Jdaidet Marjeyoun area in southern Lebanon, leaving one person dead, the state news agency NNA reported.
The Lebanese State Security Directorate said that a security personnel was killed in a drone strike in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
In a statement, the directorate called the attack “a blatant violation of the cease-fire agreement,” and “a dangerous escalation.”
An army soldier was also injured when another drone strike targeted a Lebanese bulldozer while carrying out some work inside the Abbara military site in the Hosh Sayyed Ali-Hermel area in eastern Lebanon, NNA said.
The attacks came shortly after the army said that the body of a Lebanese officer who had been unaccounted for since Nov. 26 after an Israeli airstrike was found in Naqoura town in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, for his part, asked the committee supervising the cease-fire with Israel to oblige Tel Aviv to stop its violations of the deal and withdraw from the Lebanese territories.
Lebanese media reported around 73 Israeli violations of the cease-fire deal since it came into force last week.
In Lebanon, at least 3,961 people have been killed and 16,520 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began.
GAZA
At least 37 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, pushing up the overall death toll since last year to 44,466, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Monday.
A ministry statement added that some 105,358 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 37 people and injured 108 others in four massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
At least two Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces targeted a “group of people” on Gaza City’s Jalaa Street, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports, adding that several others were wounded.
Earlier, two other people were killed when an Israeli air raid struck a market on Gaza City’s Omar al-Mukhtar Street, Wafa said, while an attack on the Sabra neighbourhood in the area killed two more people.
A child was also killed by Israeli artillery fire when Israeli forces targeted a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, it added.
Medical sources reported that the fighter jets bombed a house near the Omari Mosque in Jabalia al-Balad, north of the Gaza Strip.
Meantime, eight Palestinians were injured when a reconnaissance plane targeted Halima al-Sadia school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia camp.
Two civilians were also killed and others were injured in a bombing that targeted a gathering of displaced people in the city of Rafah.
At least 25 people were killed when Israeli warplanes hit and levelled an inhabited home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, a local source said on Monday.
Witnesses said that efforts were still ongoing to search for survivors under the rubble of the building in Beit Lahia Project area, where women and children had sheltered.
At least three Palestinians were killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes in the war-torn Gaza Strip on Monday, medics said.
A medical source said two people lost their lives and several others were injured in Israeli shelling of a group of civilians in the Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian woman was also killed and several people were injured when Israeli fighter jets hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the al-Awda Hospital in the camp said in a statement.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees in the world per capita with “many losing limbs and undergoing surgeries without even anaesthesia”.
And UN on Monday said that local food systems in Gaza have been “devastated” by Israel’s land and air strikes, highlighting access to food as one of the most pressing concerns.
“Our humanitarian partners are also warning that local food systems have been devastated by military ground operations, the bombardment of civilian areas and the presence of unexploded ordnance,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric during a news conference.
He stated that “access to food remains the most critical concern raised by community members across all group.”
Dujarric emphasized that food insecurity in Gaza is “worsening” daily, leaving people “more vulnerable”.
Describing the bakeries in Gaza as a “lifeline,” he said they are unable to remain operational due to a lack of fuel and flour.
Palestinian group Hamas said Monday that 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been killed, mostly due to Israeli airstrikes since Oct. 7 last year.
In a video posted on Telegram, the resistance group stated that “33 Israeli prisoners were killed, and some of their whereabouts remain unknown because of (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions and obstinacy.”
The group warned that continued Israeli aggression would increase the death toll among Israeli hostages. “With your relentless war, you may lose your prisoners forever. Do what you must before it’s too late.”
At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.
[Photo: Palestinians flee their homes in the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli attacks, sheltering in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school building struggle to survive without access to basic humanitarian needs, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza on December 2, 2024. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra /AA]