Nearly 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.
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.
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 war. 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.
UN: More than 30,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria in 3 days
The UN 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 percent 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.
Israeli military 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.
Israeli strike in Syria kills 5 soldiers
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.
Those strikes have become more frequent as Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas — a Hezbollah ally — in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians have fled across the border from Lebanon into Syria since the beginning of the week under intense Israeli bombardment that Israel says is targeting Hezbollah militants and weapons. The week’s strikes have killed an estimated 700 people, including at least 150 women and children.
With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence
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With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence
- The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire.
- Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time
Israel’s Netanyahu, at UN, says he came to refute lies he heard there this week from other leaders
He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: “If you strike us, we will strike you”
UNITED NATIONS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his leadership strained by conflicts on two fronts, took the UN General Assembly podium on Friday and said he was there to refute the untruths he had heard from other leaders on the same rostrum earlier in the week.
Netanyahu, armed with visual aids as he has been in the past, defended his nation’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
“I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war fighting for its life,” Netanyahu said. “But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight.”
He insisted that Israel wanted peace but said of Iran: “If you strike us, we will strike you.” He once again blamed Iran for being behind many of the problems in the region.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Health Ministry. The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but more than half the dead have been women and children, including about 1,300 children under the age of 2.
In recent days, Israel has turned its attention to the border with Lebanon, where it is targeting Hezbollah militants and has inflicted civilian casualties as well. Hezbollah began attacking Israel almost immediately after the Hamas invasion, and ongoing fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. Israel is vowing to step up its attacks on Hezbollah until its citizens can return safely to their homes.
Late Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days — following 11 months of cross-border exchange of fire — could grow into an all-out war.
The United Nations says over 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes on Lebanon, bringing the total to 200,000 people who 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 war.
Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are necessary to defend itself.
As Netanyahu took the stage, there was enough ruckus in the audience that the presiding diplomat had to shout, “Order, please.”
The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each made a point of calling out Israel for its actions. “Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his remarks, pounding the podium. And Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, speaking just before the Israeli leader, declared of Gaza: “This is not just a conflict. This is systematic slaughter of innocent people of Palestine.” He thumped the rostrum to audible applause.
UN says strikes on Lebanon killing children ‘at a frightening rate’
- “The attacks on Lebanon are killing and injuring children at a frightening rate,” UNICEF’s Lebanon representative Edouard Beigbeder said
- “The suffering of children must stop“
BEIRUT: The UN children’s agency condemned this week’s sharp escalation of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, saying that the bombardment of Lebanon was killing children “at a frightening rate.”
Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7.
Israel shifted its focus this week from Gaza to its northern front with Lebanon, while Hezbollah has launched barrages of rockets into northern Israel.
Since Monday, Israeli warplanes have bombarded what the military says are Hezbollah targets around Lebanon, leaving around 700 people dead, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which says the majority were civilians.
On Monday and Tuesday, 50 of those killed were children, UNICEF said, citing ministry data.
“The attacks on Lebanon are killing and injuring children at a frightening rate,” UNICEF’s Lebanon representative Edouard Beigbeder said, according to the statement.
The situation “has moved from crisis to catastrophe. The suffering of children must stop,” Beigbeder said, calling for a halt in the fighting.
Israel has hit back against accusations of large numbers of civilian casualties, accusing Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields.
18 dead in Sudan’s El-Fasher after paramilitary attack on market: medic
- “We received last night at the hospital 18 dead,” some of them burned and others killed with severe shrapnel injuries, a source at El-Fasher Teaching Hospital said
- The plight of Sudan, and El-Fasher in particular, has been under discussion this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York
PORT SUDAN: A paramilitary attack on a market in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher killed 18 people, a medical source told AFP on Friday, after world leaders appealed for an end to the country’s wartime suffering.
The Rapid Support Forces’ shelling of the market on Thursday evening also injured dozens, activists said separately, as the paramilitaries and regular army vie for control of the North Darfur state capital, 17 months into their war in the northeast African country.
“We received last night at the hospital 18 dead,” some of them burned and others killed with severe shrapnel injuries, a source at El-Fasher Teaching Hospital told AFP, requesting anonymity for their own protection.
The plight of Sudan, and El-Fasher in particular, has been under discussion this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“We must compel the warring parties to accept humanitarian pauses in El-Fasher, Khartoum and other highly vulnerable areas,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday.
The Teaching Hospital is one of the last still receiving patients in El-Fasher, where reports of a “full-scale assault” by RSF on the city last weekend led UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call for an urgent ceasefire.
The paramilitaries have besieged El-Fasher since May, and famine has already been declared in Zamzam refugee camp near the city of two million.
Paramilitary “artillery shelling continued this morning” on residential neighborhoods and the market, the local resistance committee said on Friday.
The committee, which reported the dozens of wounded in Thursday’s market attack, is one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer groups across Sudan that provide crucial aid to civilians caught in the crossfire.
Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people. The World Health Organization cited a toll of at least 20,000 but United States envoy Tom Perriello has said some estimates reach 150,000.
US President Joe Biden, who raised particular concern over the assault on El-Fasher, on Tuesday urged all countries to cut off weapons supplies to the country’s rival generals, Sudanese Armed Forces chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
“The world needs to stop arming the generals. Speak with one voice and tell them: ‘Stop tearing your country apart. Stop blocking aid to the Sudanese people. End this war now,’” Biden told the UN General Assembly.
On the sidelines of the UN talks, Guterres met with Burhan, expressing concern about “escalation” and the risk of “a regional spillover,” the UN said.
Both sides have been repeatedly accused of war crimes.
The RSF, descended from Darfur’s Janjaweed militia, have specifically been accused of ethnic cleansing.
Dagalo released a video Thursday evening addressing the UN gathering, hours after Burhan took the stage in New York wearing a formal suit instead of his military fatigues.
Rejecting Burhan’s participation, Dagalo said the RSF had “formed a force to protect civilians” and was “open to all initiatives” aimed at peace.
Also on Thursday, air strikes and shelling rocked the capital Khartoum as the army attacked paramilitary positions across the Sudanese capital, witnesses and a military source said.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, warned on Thursday that, “if El-Fasher falls, there is a high risk of ethnically-targeted violations and abuses, including summary executions and sexual violence, by the RSF and allied militia.”
Darfur is home to more than five million displaced people, or around half of the country’s current internal displacement, which the UN said is the world’s worst.
“Sudan is now also the world’s largest hunger crisis,” the UN said in a statement on Wednesday.
Lebanon facing deadliest period ‘in a generation’: UN
- “The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon
- “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning“
GENEVA: The UN said Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties.
“The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7.
Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon.
Since Monday, Israeli warplanes have bombarded Hezbollah strongholds around the country, killing more than 700 people and injuring nearly 6,000, according to the health ministry.
Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon last week also killed at least 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in an attack widely blamed on Israel, which has refused to comment.
“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut.
He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
“The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge,” he said.
At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanon’s “health sector is completely overrun.”
“The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies,” he said.
“With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands.”
The hospitals in Lebanon “are overwhelmed,” agreed Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization.
She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialized treatment.
A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, “and 152 of those are critical cases,” Harris said.
“That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled.”
At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events.
Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate.
The WHO had helped “train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty,” she said. But “in our planning scenarios, we didn’t have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected.”
“It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected.”
Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Israel’s Tel Aviv and Ashkelon
- The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day
DUBAI: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon.
The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.
The Houthi’s military spokesperson said their operations won’t halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.
“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.
