By Elham Asaad Buaras
London, (The Muslim News): Israel has intensified its airstrikes on Beirut, launching the heaviest attack to date, with reports of dozens killed across Lebanon in the last 24 hours.
Israeli jets dropped around 73 tonnes of bombs on Hezbollah’s [Hizbullah] Dahieh stronghold, targeting Hashem Safieddine, seen as the group’s next leader. Lebanese media reported this strike as significantly larger than the one that killed Hezbollah’s current leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last week. The exact casualty count remains unclear.
In retaliation, rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel. Israeli media reported that 10 rockets targeted the Kiryat Shmona settlement, while an additional 20 rockets struck Israeli border settlements. Sirens blared across northern Israel as over 60 rockets rained down throughout the day. One Lebanese resident, describing the situation, said, “We’ve never seen anything like this before—it’s like the sky is falling.”
UN experts issued a “sharp condemnation” of Israel’s violations of international law, warning that its ongoing military operations would only worsen the humanitarian crisis. “The number of internally displaced persons in Lebanon has more than tripled in less than a month due to Israel’s relentless attacks on populated areas, coupled with belated or ineffective evacuation orders, in violation of the principles of distinction and proportionality,” the experts stated.
They added, “Israel’s latest breach of international law—a ground invasion in violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity—will only add to this mounting toll of death and displacement.”
In southern Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes on Friday resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, according to state media. Four paramedics were killed by Israeli shelling near Marjayoun Governmental Hospital, forcing the facility to cease operations.
Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office condemned the attacks, stating that Israel continues its “terrorist crimes against humanity.” The statement confirmed that the Israeli airstrikes targeted civil defence teams, killing a “civil defence member from the Islamic Health Authority and injuring several others.”
A Lebanese medical source informed Al Jazeera that Israeli jets struck an ambulance near a hospital, killing the paramedics. The hospital was then closed, one of 38 medical centres out of 137 along Lebanon’s southern border that have been shut down due to safety concerns. “Most of them were very close to the border areas, and the doctors and medical staff there felt that those strikes were coming in too close for them to guarantee to be able to operate safely,” the source said. Another strike on Khirbet Selm in Bint Jbeil, near the Israeli border, killed two more people.
In another incident, the National News Agency reported casualties from an Israeli strike near a Lebanese army centre in Al-Bayada. Separately, an Israeli military spokesperson claimed that roughly 250 Hezbollah fighters, including battalion and company commanders, have been killed since the start of Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon, though Hezbollah has not confirmed these numbers.
The situation in the Palestinian Territories also remains critical. Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 18 Palestinians in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, with the death toll likely to increase.
In Gaza, continuous bombardments over the past 24 hours have claimed 17 more lives, raising the total fatalities since October 7 to 41,802, with over 96,800 wounded.
A spokesperson from Gaza’s Health Ministry said, “Israeli forces killed 14 people and injured 50 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours. Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads, as rescuers are unable to reach them.”
The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) also reported that Israeli forces had attacked three UN-run school shelters in Gaza, killing at least 21 Palestinians over two days. The bombardment has devastated the territory. “What happened yesterday was a major massacre. They were in pieces,” said Faisal Salama, an official in the Tulkarem refugee camp, describing the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a two-story building where Palestinians had gathered in a café on the ground floor. “We consider this an aggression targeting all our people, and we demand an end to this war, an end to the occupation, and that we live in freedom, security, and safety like all the peoples of the world.”
Israel has continued its military offensive in Gaza despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire following the Hamas-led attack on October 7.
Salama, echoing the growing frustration of many Palestinians, added, “This is collective punishment practised by the occupation against our people. Most of those who were martyred yesterday were innocent civilians who were targeted inside their homes.”
In another strike on the Gaza Strip, medical sources at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah confirmed that four people were killed in an attack on a house. Rescue teams were able to recover the body of one victim from the rubble near Al-Louh Palace.
Meanwhile, four more bodies were retrieved from the wreckage of a house in Nuseirat refugee camp. Official Palestinian news sources reported that Israeli forces had also shelled homes and sites sheltering displaced people in both Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.
In Khan Younis, medical staff confirmed that five more Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted a house. “Many of the victims were members of the same family,” a doctor said, adding, “These are civilian homes, not military targets.”
Despite the mounting death toll, violence shows no signs of abating.
Two rockets were fired from Gaza into illegal Israeli settlements near the border on Friday, with sirens sounding in Kissufim and Ein HaShlosha.
[Photo: Syrians & Lebanese living in Lebanon cross to Syria side with what they could take with them after Israeli attacks in Massna, Lebanon on 04 10, 2024. Photojournalist: Murat Şengül /AA]
