Over 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders.
Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters that 25 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since midnight in different parts of the country.
Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if Hezbollah firing on Israel continues, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.
The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time.
The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the country welcomed the ceasefire efforts, and decried Israel’s “systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages.”
Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles toward the country’s northern border with Lebanon, and commanders have issued a call-up of reservists. Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and won’t stop until its goals are achieved.
An Israeli security official said he expects a possible war against Hezbollah would not last for as long as the current conflict in Gaza because the Israeli military’s goals are much narrower.
The official said Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas’ military and political regime in Gaza, but the goal in Lebanon is just to push Hezbollah away from the border with Israel. That is “not a high bar like Gaza” in terms of operational objectives, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing guidelines.
The official said that no decision has been made on whether Israel will carry out a ground operation in southern Lebanon. But he stressed that the military is training for this possibility every day and is ready to implement it.
He added that Israel still sees Resolution 1701, the United Nations-brokered resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, as the best solution for lasting stability. But that the resolution must be enforced by an international force that is able to keep Hezbollah from setting up infrastructure close to the border with Israel.
He said Israel’s punishing aerial bombardments this week, which killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, represent Israel’s decision to start enforcing the resolution on their own.
Israeli strike within Gaza hospital complex
An Israeli airstrike hit a tent sheltering displaced people within a hospital complex in central Gaza early Friday, killing one Palestinian man and injuring four others.
The strike on Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah left some tents and tarps torn apart with items such as bottles, mattresses, and a baby chair scattered on the dusty ground.
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An Israeli military spokesperson told The Associated Press it conducted a “precise strike on Islamic Jihad terrorists who were operating inside command and control centers embedded within the Humanitarian Area in Deir al Balah.”
The spokesperson said that steps were take to “mitigate the risk of harm to civilians.” The military did not comment on whether militants had been killed in the strike.
A video filmed by The Associated Press shows several children surrounding metal parts of the guided missile labeled “manufacturer United States Army” in the vicinity of the hospital where hundreds of displaced people are sheltering.
Houthi rebels claim missile attack targeting Israel
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed a missile attack that targeted Israel early Friday morning.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, claimed the attack in a pre-recorded statement released by the Houthis. He claimed the rebels launched both a missile and drone. The missile targeted Tel Aviv while the drone targeted another city, though Israel did not acknowledge the drone. No injuries were reported.
The U.N. refugee agency says “well over 30,000” people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria over the last 72 hours in the wake of fighting between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents.
He said about 80 per cent were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese.
“Now these, of course, are people who are fleeing bombs and who are crossing into a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years now,” he told reporters in Geneva by video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing “economic collapse,” he said.
“I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make,” he said.
An Israeli airstrike on a border village has killed nine members of the same family, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Friday.
NNA said nine people were killed in the early Friday airstrike on the village of Chebaa that destroyed their three-story building.
Chebaa is in an area where the borders of Syria, Israel and Lebanon meet, and was struck several times in recent months.
On Friday, Israeli warplanes struck towns and villages in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, according to NNA.
Israel reports more strikes from Lebanon
Incoming fire from Lebanon into Israel continued Friday, with one man suffering wounds from shrapnel.
The Israeli military said four drones came across the border Friday, all of which were intercepted.
Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said another 10 projectiles came into Israel from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others falling into open fields.
It said it later targeted launchers in Lebanon behind the missile attacks.
Hezbollah claimed it had targeted the Israeli city of Tiberias with missiles.
An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military site in the area of Kfar Yabous in Syria near the border with Lebanon killed five Syrian army soldiers and injured another, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Friday, citing an unidentified military official.
Israel’s military did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria and facilities linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah but rarely acknowledges them.
