Smoke rose from Beirut’s southern suburbs Saturday morning and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes.
Attacks on Hezbollah targets by fighter jets Friday continued into the early hours Saturday after the army said it told residents to evacuate three buildings it was targeting.
Hours before the strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations, vowing that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would continue — further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire. Netanyahu abruptly cut his United States visit short and returned to Israel.
More than 720 people have been killed in Lebanon since the conflict escalated Monday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
The United Nations says the number of those displaced by the conflict from southern Lebanon has more than doubled, with more than 211,000 people now displaced. At least 20 primary health care centers have shut down in hard-hit areas of Lebanon, the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.
Here’s the latest:
CAIRO — An Israeli airstrike killed at least two people and wounded 11 others in the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, the Awda hospital said.
The strike hit a house late Friday in the camp, according to the hospital which received the casualties in the first hours of Saturday.
More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the nearly year-long war. Over the past few days, the Israeli military has carried out strikes in northern and central Gaza, which they said were targeting Hamas militants operating from civilian areas.
TEL AVIV — Hezbollah launched more than two dozen projectiles toward Israel Saturday morning, triggering sirens in more than 100 cities and towns across Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said a surface-to-surface missile was fired from Lebanese territory and fell in an open area in central Israel. Israeli media said the missile fell in the sea.
No injuries or damages were reported, according to Israel’s Fire and Rescue Services.
While Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire since Oct. 8 mostly in the area around the border, in the past weeks, the strikes have targeted much deeper into both countries.
This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 720 people in Lebanon, including dozens of women and children, according to Health Ministry statistics. A number of people have been injured in Israel.
BEIRUT — Patients in hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs will be evacuated to medical centers in the capital and the nearby Mount Lebanon region, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.
In a statement carried by state news agency early Saturday, the ministry called on hospitals in Beirut and Mount Lebanon to stop receiving cases that can be delayed in order to receive patients evacuating from the hard-hit southern suburb Dahiyeh.
The ministry’s decision came after a night of Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, a predominantly Shiite district. The ministry also called on hospitals and medical centers to care for ill people who fled Dahiyeh overnight as a result of the airstrikes.
BEIRUT — Smoke rose from Beirut’s southern suburbs Saturday morning and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes.
Explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs, with flames lighting up the pre-dawn darkness. Fire raged from at least one location, and smoke and flames were seen from above Beirut early Saturday. Residents reported jets flying overhead.
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