AITO, Lebanon: An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people needs to be independently investigated, the United Nations’ human rights office said Tuesday.
“We have real concerns with respect to … the laws of war,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office in Geneva said a day after the strike, as rescue workers searching through the rubble found more bodies and remains. Laurence said the UN had received credible reports that a dozen women and children were among the dead.
The Israeli military said it “struck a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization” and that it would look into reports of civilian deaths.
The apartment building hit in the airstrike was in the small village of Aito, in the country’s Christian heartland and far from Hezbollah’s main areas of influence in Lebanon’s south and east. The strike was a shock to residents, and it exacerbated fears that Israel would expand its offensive deeper into Lebanon.
“I heard a loud noise, like a boom,” said Dany Alwan, who lives next door. “We ran outside, I saw the dust and the smoke and the rubble. There was a body here, another one there. It was a really ugly and painful scene.”
The three-story building had been rented out to the Hijazi family, which fled their home in the southern village of Aitaroun, according to Elie Alwan, Dany Alwan’s brother and the building’s owner. Some 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon, where the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been concentrated.
As rescue workers rummaged through the debris on Tuesday, they found the body of a child, and later a small leg and other remains that they put together in a white bag. The Lebanese military watched as a bulldozer cleared heaps of twisted steel, destroyed olive trees, and crushed rocks.
Over the past year, 2,350 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to the country’s Health Ministry, which says roughly 25 percent have been women and children.
Hezbollah’s acting leader vows to step up strikes against Israel
Earlier on Tuesday, the acting leader of Hezbollah said the militant group would fire rockets into more areas of Israel until it ceases its airstrikes and ends its ground invasion of Lebanon.
Naim Kassem said Hezbollah is focused on “hurting the enemy,” comments made in a pre-recorded televised speech delivered on the same day the United States said it sent a small team of troops to Israel to support an American-made missile-defense system.
Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past year in support of Hamas’ war with Israel in Gaza. Tens of thousands of northern Israelis have been displaced from their homes by those attacks — and Israel has said its war with Hezbollah is aimed at stopping those rockets so families can return home.
On Tuesday, Kassem signaled that Hezbollah would ramp up attacks further south in Israel, which it has already done by targeting Tel Aviv and Haifa. Kassem has headed the militant group since Sept. 27, when its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike.
Hezbollah began targeting Israel with rockets on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and 250 as hostages in Gaza.
Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas has left more than 42,000 people dead in Gaza, according to local health officials. They do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, but have said a little more than half the dead are women and children. Hezbollah has insisted it will continue to target Israel until a ceasefire in Gaza is reached.
“We cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, or Palestine from the world,” Kassem said.
Also on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced the arrival of US troops in Israel on Monday. The team will operate a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery there to defend against ballistic missile attacks from Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and has launched two missile attacks on Israel.
“Over the coming days, additional US military personnel and THAAD battery components will continue to arrive in Israel,” Ryder said.
Iran has warned US troops would be in harm’s way if they launch another attack.
In Lebanon, Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion have displaced more than 400,000 children in the past three weeks, according to Ted Chaiban, deputy executive director at UNICEF, the UN children’s agency.
UN says deadly Israeli strike in northern Lebanon should be investigated
https://arab.news/4essn
UN says deadly Israeli strike in northern Lebanon should be investigated
- “We have real concerns with respect to … the laws of war,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office in Geneva said
- The UN had received credible reports that a dozen women and children were among the dead
Israel assures US it won’t strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites, US officials say
- The officials noted that Israel’s track record on fulfilling pledges in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington’s expectations
- The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration believes it has won assurances from Israel that it will not hit Iranian nuclear or oil sites as it looks to strike back following Iran’s missile barrage earlier this month, two US officials said Tuesday.
The administration also believes that sending a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it has eased some of Israel’s concerns about possible Iranian retaliation and general security issues.
The Pentagon on Sunday announced the THAAD deployment to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October, saying it was authorized at the direction of President Joe Biden.
However, the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic discussions, cautioned that Israel’s assurances are not ironclad and that circumstances could change.
The officials also noted that Israel’s track record on fulfilling pledges in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington’s expectations.
The most recent example of that was last month, when US officials were told by their Israeli counterparts that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would welcome a US- and French-led temporary ceasefire initiative in Lebanon only to see Israel launch a massive airstrike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah two days later.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza within the next 30 days or Israel could risk losing access to US weapons funding.
The Middle East has been bracing for an expected response from Israel after Iran launched roughly 180 ballistic missiles on Oct. 1, which the United States helped to fend off. The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war.
Israel’s offensive against Iranian-backed Hamas militants in Gaza has expanded into a ground invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy that has been firing into Israel since the conflict in Gaza started a year ago in solidarity with Hamas.
Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory Israeli strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program and urged Israel to consider alternatives to hitting Iran’s oil sector. Such a strike could affect the global oil market and boost pump prices just ahead of the US presidential election.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone last week for the first time in seven weeks, while Defense Secretary Austin has been speaking regularly with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.
The Pentagon said in a readout of a call from Sunday that Austin reaffirmed US support for Israel’s security but urged it to ensure protections for UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, shift from military operations to a diplomatic solution and “raised concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed that steps must be taken soon to address it.”
The White House National Security Council declined to confirm that Netanyahu offered Biden any assurances about targets.
“Our commitment to Israel’s defense is ironclad,” the White House National Security Council said in a statement. “We will not discuss private diplomatic discussions and would refer you to the Israeli government to speak to their own potential military operations.”
‘Nowhere is safe’: Lebanon Christian villiage reels from Israel strike
- The bombing sent many people fleeing to Lebanon’s mountains, including Christian villages which are coming to fear the cost of hosting displaced communities
AITO: Elie Alwan sheltered a displaced Shiite family from southern Lebanon in his peaceful Christian-majority village, believing they would be safe — instead an Israeli air strike killed them, destroyed his home and injured his mother.
The October 14 strike on the north Lebanon village of Aito in the Zgharta district killed 23 people, including at least 12 women and two children, many of them displaced from south Lebanon, according to the official National News Agency.
“It’s a massacre that happened in my home,” said 42-year-old Alwan.
The attack, which wiped out an entire family, was the first time the mountain village has been struck by Israel, which has mostly targeted Shiite-dominated Hezbollah strongholds.
The four-story building where Alwan lived was destroyed and the displaced family whom he had known for 15 years were wiped out.
“They were a decent family,” said the father of four, blood stains still visible on the rubble-strewn ground beside him.
“I welcomed them as friends.”
Michel Moawad, an MP opposed to Hezbollah and a native of the region, said the strike targeted a member of the pro-Iranian militant group.
A security official, speaking anonymously to AFP, said the strike occurred just after a man arrived by car at the building to visit the displaced family.
“I blame the man who came here. Why did you put us in this mess?” said Alwan, who is now forced to rent a house in the coastal town of Chekka, several kilometers (miles) away.
He was not there during the strike, but his mother was wounded in the leg and was being treated in hospital.
As excavators worked to clear the mountain road a day after the strike, the stench of corpses hung in the air and human remains lay in a ditch at the side of the road.
A statue of Saint Charbel Makhlouf, a Christian Maronite was intact but surrounded by destruction.
The strike sparked alarm across Lebanon’s north and prompted a call for an independent and thorough investigation from the UN rights office.
“We have real concerns with respect to... the laws of war and the principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality,” spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters on Monday.
A year of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah escalated on September 23 when Israel dramatically increased its bombing of Hezbollah strongholds in the country’s east, south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The bombing sent many people fleeing to Lebanon’s mountains, including Christian villages which are coming to fear the cost of hosting displaced communities.
“We are Christians, our religion teaches us tolerance. But now we have learned our lesson. We will no longer welcome anyone into the family” home, said Alwan’s brother Sarkis, who lives just next door.
Sarkis did not name Hezbollah but suggested he was angry with the powerful Iran-backed group for dragging Lebanon into a war with Israel.
“We are no match for the United States,” Israel’s main ally, said Sarkis.
Nearby, Adele Khoury was unequivocal in her condemnation of the militant group.
“Hezbollah has brought us into a war from which we can no longer escape,” she said.
Standing beside the church square, the elderly woman said she feared Israel’s string of assassinations of Hezbollah officials would leave no community unharmed.
“We are afraid every day that Israel will come and target us, because wherever there is a (Hezbollah) commander, they target him,” she said.
But when talking about the displaced, she was more sympathetic.
“The poor things, they fled to safe areas, but now nowhere is safe.”
Israel asks its defense sector to help foil drone attacks
- On Sunday, Hezbollah said it had attacked the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade in Binyamina in northern Israel with a “swarm of drones”
JERUSALEM: Israel’s government has turned to industry to bolster the military’s ability to intercept aerial drones launched by Iran or the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
The Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it had launched a competition among eight large and small companies.
“After analizing the trial results, the Defense Ministry will select several technologies to enter an accelerated development and production process. This aims to deploy new operational capabilities within months,” it said.
In addition to missiles, Iran, Hezbollah and others have used drones in attacks on Israel.
On Sunday, Hezbollah said it had attacked the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade in Binyamina in northern Israel with a “swarm of drones.” It said some of the drones, which included models it had not used before, had eluded Israeli air defense radar.
Israel’s military said four of its soldiers had been killed and seven severely injured.
“The UAV threat is a multi-arena threat originating from Iran, which supplies UAVs to Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and even launches them itself,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“We must concentrate the national effort ... to produce operational solutions quickly.”
The ministry’s director general, Eyal Zamir, said it had already invested hundreds of millions of shekels in such capabilities.
Those participating include Israel’s top defense firms, Elbit Systems, Rafael, and Israel Aerospace Industries.
How a former BBC cameraman’s experience of famine drove him to devise ‘a better way to feed displaced people’
- Pete Henderson has developed a protein-rich food bar designed specifically for people displaced by conflict and disaster
- To tackle food insecurity, his UK and Gulf-based company also aims to empower communities by investing in localized crop production
DUBAI: Hunger remains one of the world’s most pressing challenges, with more than 733 million people grappling with insufficient nutrition each day, many of them in areas impacted by conflict, economic instability, and climate change.
A year into the war in Gaza, three-quarters of Palestinians there rely on food assistance to survive, despite the increasing challenges faced by organizations trying to bring in vital supplies. Hunger and malnutrition rates could rise in Lebanon too as communities are forced by the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war to abandon their homes and farmland in the country’s south.
Pete Henderson, a former BBC cameraman, founded E2G Food (Eat 2 Grow) to help address the hunger crisis by developing protein-rich food bars designed specifically for people displaced by conflict and disaster and for the first responders sent in to help them.
Henderson’s career covering global conflicts opened his eyes to the harsh realities faced by those unable to access basic necessities like food. As he witnessed firsthand the devastation caused by hunger, one incident, in particular, stood out — a scene of a man and his two young children crying from hunger.
“All they needed was some nutritious food, and their lives would’ve been slightly better,” he told Arab News. This memory, along with other stark images from famine-stricken regions, inspired him to explore more intuitive ways to provide food aid.
Henderson recalled an image of an Irish nurse standing outside a feeding center in Ethiopia during the 1983-85 famine. “She had the unfortunate position of playing God, as whoever she couldn’t admit to the center was at risk of starving to death,” he said.
“It made me realize how sometimes the power of food can be evil. As a cameraman looking at these situations, I often thought over the years we really need to find a better way to feed people who are displaced.
“The old fashioned way of throwing 25 kg bags of maize out of the back of a Hercules doesn’t cut it anymore. And if that doesn’t land on your head and kill you, then you need to cut down a tree, make a fire, find water, to cook, dispense and eat it.”
Traditional methods of distributing emergency food aid have proven inefficient and occasionally dangerous. A tragic incident in March this year underscored the risk when 18 Palestinians died during an airdrop off the coast of Gaza, highlighting the flaws in these approaches.
IN NUMBERS
- 2.8+bn People who are unable to afford a healthy diet (FAO).
- 282m People facing acute food insecurity worldwide (WFP).
- 36m Children under 5 who are acutely malnourished (UNICEF).
- 3m Children facing most severe forms of malnutrition (UNICEF).
Twelve people drowned in the sea while trying to reach the precious cargo, while six more were killed in a stampede as others rushed to the shoreline.
E2G aims to revolutionize this system by offering ready-to-eat food bars made from nutritious ingredients like dates, nuts, oils, and spirulina. These bars contain 500 calories and 30 grams of protein per serving and require no cooking, heating, or refrigeration.
“It’s instant support on the ground,” said Henderson.
The immediate benefit of E2G bars is particularly evident in conflict zones such as Gaza and Sudan, where access to food is often weaponized and the delivery of aid is restricted by conflict. According to Medecins Sans Frontieres, Sudan is already experiencing famine, while the Gaza Strip has seen pockets of extreme hunger.
In July, E2G partnered with the British Chamber of Commerce to donate 10,000 bars to Gaza, providing much-needed relief to families. Each box of E2G bars can feed a family of four for a week, offering a life-saving supplement in times of severe scarcity.
“Getting to Gaza is a challenge,” Henderson said. “But we are trying to have them delivered via Egypt or air drops from Jordan.”
E2G Food is also transparent about its operations, providing donors with updates on where their contributions are going and whom they are helping. And while its immediate goal is to provide food to those in need, the company understands that lasting solutions require a shift from dependency to sustainability.
“We’ve offered people a chance to help,” Henderson said, but the company aims to go further by establishing local partnerships that enable communities to feed themselves.
One such example is E2G’s work in Zimbabwe, where the company is building a microalgae farm to produce spirulina that can feed up to 500 people daily. Spirulina, rich in protein and other nutrients, offers a sustainable way to improve food security locally.
“If we want to tackle food security on a global basis, we need to grow local, feed local, and improve health locally,” said Henderson.
By investing in local food production, E2G aims to empower communities to be self-sufficient, reducing the need for dangerous migration in search of food.
“People don’t want to be crossing dangerous deserts and going across the Mediterranean if they don’t have to,” said Henderson.
“So if we find a way of feeding and supporting people at home and give them the ability to feed themselves and be healthy at the same time, that means we’re tackling food security correctly. And we can do all of this using renewable energy and recycled water.”
E2G’s holistic approach to hunger involves collaboration with established humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross, leveraging their expertise and distribution networks to reach the most vulnerable.
In the long term, the company seeks to improve food security while also creating job opportunities and encouraging sustainable agriculture in the regions it serves.
Fayaz King, UNICEF’s deputy executive director in Zimbabwe, praised E2G’s innovative approach.
“The E2G food bar is currently undergoing the WHO standard approval process for use in UN humanitarian and development initiatives,” King said, noting that the product is poised to play a role in global food security programs once approved.
He also highlighted the significance of E2G’s microalgae farm in Zimbabwe, calling it “a sustainable approach to addressing food security by involving local communities in the solution.”
As Henderson looks to expand E2G’s operations, he has chosen Dubai as the site for a new factory. The decision reflects his belief in the Middle East’s pivotal role in the global fight against hunger.
“The Middle East is quite positive and forward-thinking when it comes to solving problems,” he said. “If you think of global donations to support world hunger, I would say more than half of the world’s funding comes from the Middle East. And that’s impressive.”
FASTFACT
- World Food Day is observed every year on Oct. 16 to commemorate the date of the founding of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945.
The global hunger crisis has reached alarming levels, with nearly 282 million people across 59 countries facing acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme. This figure marks a significant rise compared to previous years.
Food crises have been exacerbated by persistent conflict and displacement, while inflation and rising food prices linked to the war in Ukraine continue to limit access to essentials for millions globally.
The UN added Lebanon in June to its list of hunger hotspots, saying that a quarter of the population faced acute levels of food insecurity amid the simmering conflict, soaring inflation, rising global wheat prices and diminishing humanitarian aid for the country’s 1.5 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees.
If the flow of assistance to Gaza does not resume, the UN estimates that 1 million vulnerable people will be deprived of this lifeline. There are around 100,000 tons of food positioned at different corridors, which is enough to feed over a million people for five months. However, the closure of crossing points, security issues and route disruptions at crossings are limiting aid delivery.
Particularly vulnerable are children and displaced populations. More than 36 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, with nearly 3 million facing the most severe forms of malnutrition, according to UNICEF.
Henderson says E2G Food represents a promising solution to the immediate and long-term challenges of global hunger.
While emergency food aid is essential, his vision for empowering communities through sustainable agriculture and local production reveals a former media worker’s deeper understanding of the complex issues involved.
Indeed, world hunger is not simply a problem of distribution. It is one of inequality, climate change, and conflict. E2G’s model, which balances emergency relief with sustainable development, could be a blueprint for future efforts to combat food insecurity worldwide.
However, as Henderson’s experience reveals, the journey to ending hunger is long and fraught with challenges that require both innovative solutions and collective global action.
E2G Food may not solve the hunger crisis alone, but it arguably brings the world one small step closer to addressing both the symptoms and the root causes of food insecurity.
US raised concerns with Israel over bombing campaign in Beirut, State Dept says
- Miller’s comments represent a harsher tone than Washington has adopted so far toward Israel’s military operations in Lebanon
- Israel dramatically escalated its bombing campaign of Lebanon in recent weeks, hitting Hezbollah’s strongholds
WASHINGTON: The United States opposes the bombing campaign that Israel has carried out in Beirut in past weeks and has communicated its concerns particularly over the civilian death toll, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.
“There are specific strikes that it would be appropriate for Israel to carry out. But when it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut for the past few weeks, it’s something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to,” Miller said.
The civilian death toll was among Washington’s concerns, he said, without elaborating.
Miller’s comments represent a harsher tone than Washington has adopted so far toward Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, which Israel says are aimed at degrading Iran-aligned Hezbollah and pushing its forces north and away from the border.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombing campaign of Lebanon in recent weeks, hitting Hezbollah’s strongholds of south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa region. Other areas of Lebanon have also been hit.
The hostilities had been playing out along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel since October last year in parallel with Israel’s offensive in Gaza that was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, the Lebanese health ministry said, and more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon have been displaced. The majority have been killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign.
Miller said Washington has seen Israeli bombing of Beirut diminish in recent days, adding that the United States would continue to monitor the situation.
“We’ve seen them come down over the past few days, which is not a prediction about what will happen in the future,” he said.
