(AA, Wafa, Al Jazeera): Israel’s air force expands its bombardment of Lebanon and targets civilian areas outside traditional Hezbollah bastions, including a 100-year-old mosque in a border village.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health announced today that the Israeli indiscriminate airstrikes across various regions of the country on Saturday, October 12, resulted in 51 fatalities and 174 injuries.
In a statement, the Ministry revealed that the total number of casualties resulting from Israeli attacks on Lebanon since October 8, 2023, has reached 2,306 fatalities and 10,698 people injured.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli indiscriminate bombings have killed 52 Palestinians and injured 128 others.
LEBANON
Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented escalation of air and artillery strikes by the Israeli occupation forces, impacting residential neighborhoods.
According to medical reports, many of the injured are suffering from critical conditions, exacerbated by a severe shortage of medical supplies in hospitals, which are operating at full capacity to accommodate the influx of casualties.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health called on the international community to intervene immediately to halt the Israeli attacks and provide essential aid to the injured and displaced individuals.
67 people injured, including 5 in critical condition, due to explosion of drone launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon in Benyamina, south of Haifa, northern Israel, according to the Israeli Army Radio on Sunday. Hezbollah said it targeted military sites in Israel.
The daily Israel Hayom also reported that a large number of Israelis were wounded due to the drone explosion in the town of Binyamina in Haifa.
In a statement, the Lebanese Hezbollah group confirmed that it launched a swarm of attack drones on a training camp for the Golani Brigade in Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Binyamina, where Hezbollah carried out the drone attack is located between Tel Aviv and Haifa and has a population of around 16,000 people.
This is what the Israeli media is reporting on the Binyamina attack:
Israeli Army Radio, quoting a source, said Hezbollah succeeded in deceiving the air defence system and fired a barrage of missiles to cover the drone.
It is approximately 70km south of the border with Lebanon.
The Israeli Army Radio said that the army has opened an investigation into the failure to activate the sirens when the drone entered northern Israel.
The Golani Brigade is one of the five infantry brigades of the regular Israeli army.
It is highly trained and its soldiers go into combat areas. They are regarded as one of the elite units of the Israeli army.
They were moved further up to engage on Israel’s northern front in the war on Lebanon.
This training military base, south of Haifa, is one that was singled out by Hezbollah.
According to the daily Israel Hayom, residents of Haifa and surrounding areas, including the Kiryat settlements, heard explosions without the activation of sirens.
Meanwhile, at least 17 Israeli soldiers were injured in clashes in southern Lebanon on Sunday, according to Israeli media.
Israel Hayom newspaper said the soldiers were admitted to the Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel on Sunday morning.
It said four of the soldiers were in moderate condition, while the rest sustained minor injuries.
The Israeli army said early Sunday that two soldiers were seriously injured in clashes in southern Lebanon.
It came after the Lebanese group Hezbollah said that its fighters had thwarted an Israeli infiltration attempt in the border town of Ramiah.
The group confirmed that several soldiers were also killed and injured in a bomb explosion in the town of Blida in southern Lebanon.
According to military observers, Israel has been under strict censorship regarding its casualties in the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
On Sunday, UNIFIL said two Israeli tanks destroyed the gate of the UN peacekeeping site in Ramyah, southern Lebanon.
Early Friday, Israeli forces shelled an observation post belonging to UNIFIL at its headquarters in Naqoura, southern Lebanon, wounding two peacekeepers from the Sri Lankan contingent.
Ray Murphy, a professor of law at the University of Galway and a former UN peacekeeper with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said Israel’s ultimate goal is to kick the UN mission out of southern Lebanon to free the area of international observers.
“They do not want to have a UN force that is able to report and observe the activities of the Israeli forces on the ground,” Murphy said. “The Israelis seem to be intent on carrying out a similar campaign in southern Lebanon to that which they just conducted and are continuing to conduct in Gaza. And they must not be allowed to do this.”
Murphy’s comments come soon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that UNIFIL members leave combat areas in southern Lebanon, warning that their refusal to do so will make them “hostages of Hezbollah”.
UNIFIL was established in March 1978 to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and assist the Lebanese government in restoring authority in the area. Its mandate has been expanded over the years, particularly after the 2006 Israeli war, to monitor cease-fires and facilitate humanitarian aid.
Hezbollah accused Israel on Sunday of shelling border towns in southern Lebanon with internationally banned cluster bombs.
The Lebanese group said the Israeli army bombed the area between the towns of Hanin and Tayri with rockets loaded with banned cluster bombs.
“We are not surprised at all by the new barbaric crime, which is added to Israel’s record of crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples,” Hezbollah added in a statement.
The use of cluster bombs in or near populated areas is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions as they pose a threat to the lives of civilians.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on Hezbollah’s statement.
In a series of pre-dawn airstrikes on Sunday, Israeli warplanes targeted multiple locations in southern Lebanon, causing significant destruction, according to the Lebanese National News Agency.
At approximately 3:45 a.m., an airstrike leveled the historic old mosque in the center of the town of Kfar Tibnit, completely destroying the structure, the agency reported.
Earlier, at around 12:15 a.m., another airstrike targeted a three-story building next to Ghabris station on the Zefta-Nabatieh highway, also destroying it, it added.
The strike caused the closure of the road as debris from the building blocked access. The same building had been previously struck in an air raid a week earlier, partially damaging it.
A third airstrike was carried out at approximately 1:30 a.m., this time targeting the town of Aita al-Shaab. No further details on casualties or additional damage were immediately available.
According to an Anadolu Agency reporter, the Israeli army blew up a mosque in the town of Al-Dhahirah after a limited incursion by its forces from the nearby Jurdah military position.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced on Sunday that its fighters successfully thwarted an Israeli infiltration attempt in the town of Ramiya in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
In a statement, Hezbollah said: “Islamic Resistance fighters detonated an explosive device against an Israeli force attempting to infiltrate the Tel al-Mador area in Ramiya at 4:45 a.m. on Sunday, inflicting casualties.”
IRAN
The US will deploy an air defense battery to Israel amid the growing threat of Iran, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
“At the direction of the President, Secretary Austin authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1,” Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
The THAAD battery will augment Israel’s integrated air defense system, Ryder said, adding the action underscores the US “ironclad” commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.
A U.S. official told CBS News that around 100 US troops will head with the missile defense system to Israel.
GAZA
At least 52 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, pushing up the overall death toll since last year to 42,227, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Sunday.
A ministry statement added that some 98,464 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 52 people and injured 128 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.
More than 300 people have been killed in Israel’s ongoing offensive in the northern Gaza Strip since last week, local authorities said on Sunday.
“We have documented 300 deaths in nine consecutive days of genocide amid systematic killings and a complete siege against civilians,” Ismail al-Thawabteh, who heads Gaza’s government media office, told a press conference.
Meanwhie during Sunday night at least 13 additional Palestinians have been killed and several wounded in Israel tank shelling of a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
Five children were killed and 12 people, including women, were injured in an Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on Sunday, according to a medical source.
The fatalities occurred when Israeli forces shelled a group of civilians near a cafe in the Shati refugee camp west of the city, the source said.
At least eight Palestinians were killed in Israeli artillery shelling in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, a medical source said.
Several people were also injured, including three critically, in the attack that targeted the northern part of the Bureij refugee camp, the source added.
In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 people taken captive.
[Photo: Relatives of the dead who lost their lives in the Israeli army’s attack on Bureij refugee camp mourn after the bodies of the dead were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for funeral procedures in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on 13 10, 2024. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra /AA]
